Eclipsing the Stars
by unbidden16
Summary: Samantha Jane Witwicky has survived much in the Eternal War that has raged between the Autobots and Decepticons, but the age of bloodlust and death must come to an end. The time has come for all that was hidden in shadow to come to light. The fate of both of their worlds hangs in the balance. -All the Stars in the Sky, Shooting Stars and Setting Suns, and Soliloquy of Fallen Stars-
1. Chapter 1: Belated Impressions

**Chapter One: Belated Impressions**

A light breeze blew through the window, only slightly disturbing the sheer curtains covering the paned glass. Dotted along the marble counter were blotches of flour and vegetable oil, some smeared, some whole clumps. Fresh apples sat in a cluster near to the farmhouse sink, another pile of them chopped and ready for use in a semi-traditional apple pie.

Samantha hummed softly as she carefully spread a decadent pie crust, her grandmother's recipe, onto the bottom of the glass pie dish. The tune wasn't necessarily familiar, but it was a pleasing melody.

The apartment she lived in was a rather large duplex retrofitted into a singleplex. It wasn't a word, she knew, but she liked the sound of it. The lowest level of the three-story building was a massive garage with high ceilings. There were vaulted ceilings in the upper levels as well, but they were interrupted on either side by the loft bedrooms. The larger one with a wrought-iron spiral staircase leading up to the roof was hers. She'd renovated most of the apartment herself, even going so far as tearing down the partitioning walls herself. The whole space was widely open now and her balconies were littered with colorful plants and a small wrought-iron table with matching sling-back chairs.

The interior was a mixture of eclectic and chic. The hardwood floors she'd beaten to within an inch of their lives to give them the well-worn look she desired. She had older furniture which she had reupholstered and painted to suit her purposes mixed in with higher brands of technology. Some of those technologies were ones that the people of Earth could yet only dream of. Some, such as the floating fiber-optic lights that made the airy expanse of her apartment look caught in an eternal star-shower, were items she herself had designed and marketed.

She received a regular stipend from the government when she did not have an 'active' role in the highly confidential and all-too-important N.E.S.T. division. According to some of the planetary leaders she was foolish for brushing off the impressive salary offered to her, but she paid them no mind. While she did take a salary when she was 'on duty', roughly one week out of every month, she settled for the stipend when she wasn't immersed in day-to-day life as Cybertronian Ambassador and Liaison.

She had made more than enough money on her own in the past six years to live off quite frivolously without fret of bankruptcy.

The Star-Shower, as it had come to be known, was one of her most popular inventions. It wasn't difficult to engineer, aided by the Allspark's knowledge as she was, and didn't tap into anything that the human population shouldn't yet know about. It was strictly human-level technology that no one had thought to create yet. It was most popular in use for children's bedrooms, but had also been used at galas and weddings across the globe. The granular fiber-optics were designed in such a way that they needed only to be drawn back into their housing, a box scantly larger than a tissue box, via magnetic attraction and recharged by the Sun's rays once every three weeks for a four-hour period if they were used twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They could be recharged using the refractive glow of the moon, as well, but the charge took much longer.

Her generators were a close second in popularity, though the profits from them were easily greater. The generators utilized the same properties as the Star-Shower did when it came to recharging, but the output was far greater. She was in the process of negotiations with various power companies across the world who wished to use the technology to give more consistent and clean power to their consumer-base. She was holding out until the tight-purses realized that she wasn't going to hand over designs until they'd agreed to making the service more affordable to the general public.

Beyond those inventions were a handful of others, less successful, but still desirable amongst the masses.

The designs she was working on now, however? She wouldn't just top the charts of richest woman on Earth. Bill Gates, bless his genius soul, would lose the standing as richest person in the bat of a single eye.

Not that she was money-hungry. She wasn't. Her family had always been comfortable in higher-middle-income and she had never wanted for anything growing up. There was something to be said about financial security. No, she didn't desire more money. She didn't need all that she had now and was a regular donator to various charities around the world. She only sought to help her fellow humans – even if she didn't entirely belong of their race any longer.

Though her humming never ceased, she turned her head so that she could see Wheelie coasting into the kitchen from the balcony where he'd been basking in the bright sunshine. She smiled at him, the pull in her lip and cheek almost unnoticeable now that she'd had a few years to get used to the feeling of the damaged skin. It was not being able to see anything but shadows and bursts of light through her right eye that saddened her a little.

The scarring she now bore across her face as well as on her right hand and forearm from the severe burn she'd obtained through Jetfire's warp wasn't bothersome to her way of thinking. Human skin could not, despite the additional extraterrestrial and biomechanical assistance, entirely heal to appear as it had once been. She'd received skin-graphs to help with the scarring, but she likened her healing to recreating a classic oil painting. She could make the new and the old look very similar to each other, but never would she manage an exact copy.

Besides; the scar gave her character and reminded her on a daily basis what she had survived. It reminded her physically of what she fought for.

Her eyesight would never fully return, though.

Somewhere between the Fallen's strike against her, her death, and subsequent resurrection she had undergone a trauma to her eye that triggered degeneration. The nanites in her blood fought against the complete deterioration of the eye, but the degeneration was constant. Without the nanites she would have been completely blind in that eye instead of seeing shades and highlights. Her pupil was a shock of white inside of a lavender iris instead of traditional black.

She wore a colored contact in that eye so that she wouldn't frighten people.

"It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" She asked Wheelie, a primarily blue ex-Decepticon drone. He rolled on wheeled peds to stand beside her barefoot leg and peered up at her with his red optics. He smiled at her, his faceplates more articulate than that of many of his kind. His fanged teeth didn't intimidate her in the least.

"It is. This fresh air does wonders for your health." He whirled around to watch one of his compatriots stumble inside with far less enthusiasm. "Yo, Brains! Get your gears moving, tinman!"

Samantha chuckled, abandoning her pie-making to kneel down in front of the two diminutive 'Cons. These two were her near-constant companions and good friends despite their eccentricities. The others also felt immensely better with her having them by her side when they could not be. She had regular Cybertronian visitors to her apartment, hence the high ceilings in her oversized garage and the elevator lift sized just right for a sedan-sized mech or femme, but Wheelie and Brains were sized perfectly to be her 'roommates'. Their only mission was to protect her.

Brains grumbled unintelligently, appearing as though he'd had a night of hitting the High-Grade, an infrequent affair for any Cybertronian since they harvested primarily low and mid-grade Energon from the Earth's Sun.

"Cheer up, Brains. It's going to be a good day!" She reached up and slid open one of the miscellaneous drawers. She pulled a box of screws from the drawer and handed them to the suddenly ecstatic 'Con. "Got'chu a present."

"Yeh!" For being so small, he had a startling deep voice. He also sounded like he hit the pipe one too many times in his life with the smokiness of it. "Mmmhmmm. That's my girl."

She didn't know why he liked to eat screws or nails. She'd never seen any other 'Bot or 'Con do it, but she saw no harm in it. He wasn't adversely affected by the intake and he didn't do it all the time, though he sometimes got the sudden urge to munch on metal. He'd eaten the insides of a large-screen TV from the 80s when left unattended once. She jokingly called him her portable scrapper.

"You're cookin' early," Wheelie pronounced, using an overturned fruit crate to elevate himself closer to the kitchen counter. His spindly digits hung onto the marble lip as he surveyed her workspace. "I almost wish I could consume human food."

"It'd gum up your works even if you could taste it," she laughed, swinging her head a little to maneuver her braid back over her shoulder. It was a tight skull-braid, one a girlfriend from college had taught her when she'd seen how long and heavy her hair was. It was her preferred style now as it kept the calf-length strands under control and the weight more manageable. She'd all but given up on cutting it. It just kept growing at an exponential rate until it touched down to her calf again where it seemed to stutter to a halt.

"Why are you applying for a menial job, Sam?" the blue 'Con inquired of her, his red optics curious, but friendly. Brains hopped up beside his cohort before using the other's body as leverage to pull himself more easily to the countertop. "If you wanted to work couldn't you just work with the Autobots more? They'd keep you busy, anyway. Even the 'Cons didn't run around that much!"

"'Course they did," Brains retorted to his friend easily. "You was just on the bottom of the Energon-board. Mmmhmm." Unfazed by the organic mess he was making on himself, Brains stuck his tiny servos into the bowl of seasoned apple slices she'd prepared and began to mix them more.

"Take that back!" Wheelie demanded, bounding up onto the counter himself. Instead of fighting, as anyone else would have expected of him, he grabbed a towel, wetted it, and set out to scrub down the countertops where she had finished working.

"No."

Sam reached over once she'd rolled out the top of her pastry and took the bowl of apples away from Brains. The little 'Con, mostly silver with tones of electric blue on the edges of some of his armor and glowing fiber-optic strands for 'hair', backed docilely away from the bowl. The whole of his arms were now coated in butter, cinnamon, and various other toppings and spices. He was smaller than Wheelie in height, but he was also wider.

Brains had come into her keeping not soon after the incident with the Fallen in Egypt. Wheelie had spoken to her and implored her to bond with another drone that he had worked alongside for over three-hundred years. He wanted his friend to join him and get away from the harshness of Decepticon life. Drones were oftentimes heavily abused by the larger 'Cons. With Optimus's permission they had met with the little mech in a sparsely populated area in the Appalachian Mountains. Wheelie had commed him. It hadn't even taken bonding the little drone to draw him to the side of the Autobots, though it ensured his loyalty indefinitely.

"I need something… _mundane_ right now," she told the two as she began to fill the dish. Her brows furrowed. "I've got one of those feelings. Like it's where I'm supposed to go."

"You told Prime, yet?" Wheelie huffed through his intakes, crossing his arms over his chassis. He was giving her his patented 'stern' look.

"Oh, no, I've just kept this all to myself," she rolled her eyes heavenward, the sarcastic tone unmistakable. "I wouldn't keep that from him or any of them. There haven't been any abnormalities in the Energon Sensors and the Decepticons have been lying low. Before they left to Iran and Ukraine he told me to keep him informed. Some of the others will still be around in case anything does arise."

"Why a mailroom, though?" Wheelie sounded offended on her account. "You graduated valedictorian at Princeton! That is a great feat for humans. You majored in Social Sciences with a minor in Political Affairs."

"An' you got a Bachelor's in Medical Sciences." Brains interjected as he kicked the faucet on and began to wash his arms clean.

She'd taken enough classes to give high-schoolers fits. In actuality, she'd taken enough classes to give her counselor a conniption. She had three full-time studies and she'd completed all of them in record time with sublime results. She'd graduated with a four-point-oh despite missing days of classes in her first semester. She hadn't even flinched at the heavy workload.

That had been six years ago.

She sighed, carefully setting the pastry-top over the now filled dish. She didn't know how to explain it to the 'Cons. They wouldn't understand. Not fully, anyway.

She'd given up on a 'normal' life six years ago after dying in Egypt. She'd thrown herself into her studies to better help the Autobots, mainly in relation to her own human species. Over the years she'd taken a more prominent role in the government working with her people to make allowances and privileges available to the Cybertronians. She had diplomatic immunity for the rest of her life and asylum in most countries.

She had more clout within any given government than anyone else but she and the current leaders knew about.

Twenty-four years old and she felt a hundred some days.

"I just – I feel like I have to go there. Call it a sixth-sense." She started pinching the sides closed. "I was walking by a few of the buildings after I went grocery shopping and I just stopped in front of that one. It wasn't the Allspark triggering like it did back in college. It was just an urge I had. Brains looked in on their site. They needed a mailroom intern. I applied for the job. If there is something going on it's usually the grunts that can sneak through without notice, anyway. Bigwigs are always watched."

"Every time you get a feeling something bad happens," Wheelie complained as she scored lines into the pie before popping it into the preheated oven. She smirked at her friend.

"I would have never met you, then." His peevishness dropped a level at that. He would never, ever regret meeting her. She would never regret meeting any of them.

They were all _hers_.

She didn't need to set the timer for the oven to know intrinsically when it was finished. She took her time in moving up the stairs to her bedroom. Her bare feet made no sound against the antiquated stairwell. The two 'Cons followed after her dutifully.

"Stay out of my underwear drawer, Brains," she pointed a French-tip at the little mech. He didn't bother to look away from her in shame. He wasn't sorry for perving on her unmentionables. He couldn't be a pervert, technically, anyway. He was of another species and incompatible with humans. There was no way to 'interface' as they called it. There would never be a desire to do so, either.

"I don' understand why you need so much anyway," he grumbled in his raspy voice.

"Think of it like me having an alt. You guys change them enough."

"Not hardly," Brains denied her statement with a guffaw. He was right, of course, but it was the closest she could come to explaining herself and the human want for multiple sets of clothing. Despite no longer entirely belonging to the human race she would never rid herself of her engraved sensibilities.

"Why don't you guys go watch something on TV while I get ready? What new movie's out that you can hijack?" Immediately the two rushed to beat each other to the flat-screen downstairs. The two had combatting desires when it came to movies. While Wheelie loved action and sci-fi – no surprise there – Brains enjoyed romantic comedies. _That_ had been a surprise.

The two argued noisily downstairs as she gathered her wardrobe for the day and made her way towards the en-suite bathroom. She had a quick shower to grab before her pie would be done and she had her interview.

 _Accuretta Systems_.

Part of her wondered why she was even putting effort into this. She was a shoo-in for the job. With her credentials, the unclassified ones, she was the perfect fit for any company. If any problem arose it would be because she was 'under reaching' as her mother often complained.

Judith Witwicky, as proud as she was of her Princeton graduate daughter, was also entirely disappointed that she hadn't pursued a more predominant position in society. She'd fully expected her daughter to steamroll her way through the corporate ladder and become CEO of some monumental company. Her mother had all but been staged over the phone ready to brag to her friends about the great achievements of her fabulous daughter.

It had been one of the hardest things in her life telling her parents that after a time, somewhere in her mid-thirties, she would physically stop aging and she would remain in that form for hundreds of thousands of years. She wouldn't age. She wouldn't grow old and die. She would exist for longer than any of them would ever care to think of.

Her mother had cried and her father, Ron, had shut down.

They didn't talk to her for a whole year.

That separation had torn her apart. It had made her feel unloved and unwanted, though she knew the complete opposite was true. It had been necessary, though. She couldn't leave them in the dark. Not to mention that that year had given her a taste of her future. One day she wouldn't have them any longer. One day she would be without them, still 'young' and thriving, and she wouldn't see them again on the other side, if there was one, until her own time came a _long_ time from their deaths.

It had been both a relief and a burden when they'd opened the door to her again.

She slid into the shower stall with many jets, a conversion she'd hired a company to make for her, and allowed the excessive heat to attack her tensed muscles. It was still early and yet her whole body was as taut as a bow string. Side-effects of thinking about matters that were too depressing to contemplate in depth.

Her shower was quick and when she exited she immediately began reworking her braid. She was an old-hat at it by that time.

As she braided her hair, she stared unseeingly at the long red trousers and pleated black shirt she'd chosen for her interview. She was only half aware of the braiding she was doing. Her reflection in the mirror, if she cared to look, would have shown the expression of deep rumination on her face.

She was having the 'dreams' again.

* * *

 _The Night Before_ :

"You meddle in my affairs once more, fleshling."

Samantha groaned and dropped her head into her folded arms. She was in the white void again, the one she'd shared with Sentinel Prime and not the bright plane she'd shared with the Other, but there was no 'window'. She felt as though she sat on a solid surface, but if she looked down she knew that she would see nothing.

Her present company, however…

"You seek to ignore me. Why?" The tremor-deep voice rattled in the air around her. She grumbled incoherently to herself. She just didn't understand why she had to be subjected to these little get-togethers with him. Why couldn't she go back to dreaming about her dreamland loverboy or even Sentinel Prime? At least that mech had something to teach her.

"Speak, Pet, before I am forced to rethink your position at my side."

Sam snarled bravely and glared balefully at the automaton standing ramrod straight before her. She would have flung him the proverbial bird if she were in a better mood to do so. She wondered idly how he'd react to that.

"I will never be by your side, Megatron," she snapped, coming to stand on her two feet. She turned her back to him and was rewarded with an angry burst of emotion. He couldn't do anything about her show of disrespect, though. Not here. He'd tried snatching her up into his claw the first time only to have his servo glide right through her. It seemed that, unlike with Sentinel, she was incorporeal to the Decepticon Lord.

Tough cookies for him.

"You were mine from the first I set eyes on you, Pet." She didn't dare reflect on the tint of affection she heard in his tone. It didn't warrant thinking about too closely. "You have only to accept the truth of my words."

"Oh, stuff-it you oversized vacuum cleaner!" She whirled around and gave him a dark look. They never had an encounter that didn't involve at least one argument on this matter. "I'm human as you so arrogantly try to lord over me and hence I am raised knowing that I am my own person. Nothing and no-one can control me. Especially not some egotistical bastard like you!"

He chuckled at her, the sound pleasing to her ears.

"I do enjoy your fire, little one." He ticked a claw at her patronizingly; a human gesture. "We must work on how you direct that fire. In the face of a great wall of water, your fire will do no more good than a mouse against a lion."

"David beat Goliath and I can beat you, pompous windbag," she griped, clenching her teeth at the way he tried to belittle her.

In truth, had this not been a 'dream', she would have been scared to death. She wouldn't have dared to spout off at the mouth like she did. She wouldn't be able to rub his nose in his inadequacies because in the waking world she would have been crushed like fly under a rolled up newspaper.

Being here gave her courage and strength that she didn't think she had in the outside world.

The dreams had been coming with more frequency lately. She didn't know if they were shared with the silver titan or if it was all a figment of her own imagination, but she supposed it didn't much matter in the long run of things. Her first dream with Megatron playing a starring role had been scantily a week after Egypt, the first time she imagined he'd managed to snag a recharge since the fall of his Master.

Megatron had been _livid_.

Without anything in the white void to destroy and with her body so untouchable to him, he'd resorted to exhausting himself by firing off every weapon he had into the nothingness that surrounded them. Several blasts shuddered through her. She even felt the imminence of heat, though it was a feeling brought on by her own imaginings. Just like with any other normal dream, things could not hurt her here.

The shot, however, had done wonders to spark memories so fresh in her mind to the fore. The window had lit up out of nowhere and Megatron had stopped in startlement to see it that first time. Inside of its translucent pane her death at the Fallen's clawed servo's played. It had been him, not Megatron, who had fired on her. Killing her had been his plan all along.

Megatron turned his faceplates and optics towards her several times as her death played on a morbid loop before them. She shook, remembering the feeling of pain and helplessness. She could still feel the encroaching cold and numbness. She could feel the life leave her body still.

"I did not wish for this to happen," Megatron spoke so softly she was surprised and then baffled. She snuck a peek at him from under her lashes as she had turned to stare at the floor in preference to watching herself die over and over again. The mech's crimson optics had looked at her with regret and sorrow in their depths. She felt sympathy, even empathy, emanate from him. "I did not – I wished to keep you."

There was an apology in there. She could sense it. She narrowly tasted it on her own tongue, but the being before her was infinitely proud. He would not apologize to her. He would explain himself to no-one.

And yet…

"I believe you," she'd whispered quietly, looking back down to her feet.

Hence the dreams started. For six years, intermittently, she'd had these dreams with Megatron. They were never with another and she wondered why. Why him? Why now? The Allspark gave her no answers when she sought them from its well of knowledge. The blasted thing gave her everything she ever asked for at any other time, but in the one instance that she called on it most fervently it had no response to give her.

She didn't think she dreamed with him every time he recharged. They had too few dreams for that to be so. He had to have recharged – _slept_ – more than fifteen times in six years. Ratchet himself had confirmed when she asked that Cybertronians tended to recharge for a several-hour period once every month or so, even if they spread it out over the course of that time-span. Even if pushed to their limits, a Cybertronian needed to recharge for at least one hour in the span of three months or their frames would shut-down and make the recharge mandatory instead of compulsory.

"You are in your own mind again, Pet." She was drawn from her musings by his voice right before her. She hadn't even felt his approach. Hadn't heard him. His faceplates, jagged and frightening, were mere feet from her.

The left side of his helm and face, a good third of his orbital cavity, was missing. The edges closest to the gaping maw were burnt and broken. Energon dripped down his face and wires sparked hazardously. Other parts of his body were damaged as well, but none so severely as his face. In that first dream his arm had been missing, shorn off by Optimus she'd learned, but by their second dream it had been reattached and repaired.

His face looked as gruesome now as it had six years ago.

"You're in my mind, too," she countered slowly as she turned her face away from his. She hated looking at the obviously painful wound. She wanted to fix it. She had an inexplicable, hard-to-fight urge to make his pain go away and restore him to his former glory.

Megatron tutted. "This is not your mind, little one. Never would your mind be so blank. I suspect that peering into your mind would be like looking into an erupting Sun from a great distance. Your thoughts would fly across your consciousness like fiery debris, their colors igniting across whole galaxies with the brilliance of them."

"You have a knack for poetry," she mumbled in praise. He did that sometimes. He surprised her with his charming wit. Was this the Megatron that Optimus had come to know and respect? Was _this_ the mech he called brother? She could believe it.

"I speak only truth."

"Very prettily you speak truth," she smirked as she met his optics once more. When he was like this…she didn't know how to handle him. She wanted to hate him. Very badly she wanted to shut him out and keep him far away from her, but she couldn't. Had he focused himself differently and acted accordingly she felt deep down in her gut that he had all the makings of a true Prime.

The titan raised one of his claws, very slowly, towards her. He curled it so that the smooth back was all that faced her. She didn't flinch when he brought it within a hairsbreadth of her. She shivered to feel it float hazily through her a second later.

Megatron growled.

"I wish to touch. Can this place not allow me to do so?" He stood up and away from her, frustration leaking off of him like the Energon from his helm. His optics scanned her bodily. "I ask you again, Pet; why have you never healed?"

It was her turn to emit an exclamation of frustration. They had this argument frequently as well. It always ended the same and she had assumed he would be exhausted with the same question by this time.

"My human body won't allow for complete regeneration. The nanites focus most of their healing on my eye to keep it from going blind. If they redirected their attention elsewhere to superficial things, then more vital systems would fail." Out of habit she fingered the hard bit of scar tissue that stretched from her temple to her chin. Her smile was almost crooked now due to the immobility of the tissues orbiting the once deep wound.

"Besides; I'm working on something."

"Explain," Megatron ordered her, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. His full focus was on her.

She rolled her eyes. "I've got designs drawn up that may be able to help mankind. I'm currently working on the prototypes and if they are viable I will be submitting myself for the human trials seat." She got the impression of an eyebrow quirk from the Decepticon leader, but didn't expand more than she was willing to give. "My dilemma is creating what I must with the materials available to us here on Earth and using technology that isn't at risk of advancing my species more than they can handle."

"You speak as though you are still one with them. You are not." He tsked her again, though no sound of such was made. "You are better than the species you were born into. You are high above them. This is why you belong at my side. You are to be exalted for who and what you are. I will see this come to pass."

"Keep on dreaming, Sparky." She giggled when another wire sticking from his helm fritzed as though on queue to her jab. It wasn't funny due to his pain, but it was due his own stupidity in attaining such an injury. One did not stand against Optimus Prime and expect to come out as the victor.

"I will not need to dream, _Pet_ , and neither will you." The whiteness began to grow dim around them and she knew she was close to waking. Megatron beamed at her, though his fanged 'lips' did not show it outwardly. She felt it in her soul. "Very soon, my little Pet, you will be where you belong."

Absently she noted as he faded away and she began to wake that his endearment for her had begun to sound nice coming from his vocalizers.

…Not that she'd tell him that.

* * *

"Sam! Come downstairs!" Wheelie's exuberant call dragged her from her memories with the force of a Category Three hurricane. She jolted where she sat on the vanity stool in the bathroom. Her hair was already plaited and she'd been sitting there staring at her torn face in the mirror for several minutes already. "Brains uploaded ' _The Martian_ ' onto the BluRay."

With a final look at herself in the mirror she shook last night's dream from her mind and dressed quickly.

She had a pie to get out of the oven and an interview that she couldn't be late for.

 _If there's one thing that Mom taught me, it's that first impressions are very important_.


	2. Chapter 2: Shifting Perspectives

**Chapter Two: Shifting Perspectives**

Hunter Mason stood against one of the Humvees nursing the blow he'd taken through his helmet to his admittedly fragile skull. He hadn't been knocked unconscious, but he had been catapulted through one of the dust-covered windows and onto the barren wasteland of a lot outside.

He was bleeding a little and most likely sported one hell of a bruise along his back from the impact with the rocky earth.

Two of the Russian scientists, who had been working at the reactor site for the past three months, had fared with far less superficial results. Their families would be informed in short order and their bodies would be brought home for a long, well-deserved rest.

"First Lieutenant Mason," the familiar voice of his commanding officer broke through the barrier of his radiation suit. He pivoted smartly, ignoring his head-wound, and saluted the Lieutenant Colonel. "At ease, Mason."

Just as quickly as he'd poised himself, Hunter allowed himself to settle his weight back into the vehicle. He was getting too old for this.

"Can you make it back to base or should I call a medic?" Lennox asked him, hands braced behind his back, legs spread. Hunter had rarely seen the man 'let loose' since he'd joined N.E.S.T four and a half years prior. The man was a genuinely good person with a strong will and sound character. It hadn't taken Hunter more than a month to realize that he would be proud to serve under this man for the rest of his career if need-be.

"I'll be just fine, Sir." He couldn't help but dart his eyes towards the two body-bags being carefully settled into the back of another Humvee. "All things considered, I got the better end of the deal."

Lennox looked too, his face dour under the murky film of the radiation suit.

"Damned Decepticons. They've been quiet for too long. The fact that they're here now…I don't trust this. What do they want?"

"Involves that hunk of junk down in the lower levels," Hunter grumbled, adjusted his weight against the Humvee. He didn't think he had a concussion, but his back certainly ached something fierce. "Any idea what it is?"

"None." His commander shook his head firmly in denial. "The Transformers have a lot of tech we don't have a clue about, anyway, so that's really no surprise. Optimus radioed in; said he'd gathered the item from that giant squid."

An apt term for it. Hunter had never seen anything like it. The mechanical beast had been bigger than Astrotrain – who stood roughly eighty-feet tall when in his bipedal form – and ten-times as mean. While Astrotrain, a defected Decepticon, had a stilted way of talking and most often gave off a vibe of unending peevishness, he was not a cruel bastard. He'd had rougher encounters with Ratchet, the Autobot medic, than he'd had with Astrotrain.

 _Maybe that's because Astrotrain doesn't socialize_ , he mused to himself.

The beast that had tunneled up from the bowels of Hell – where else could it have come from – had 'tentacles' that broke off over its entire tubular body. Each tip had a whirling maw of razor-like 'teeth' that shredded through dirt and metal like tissue paper. The two scientists had been taken from below and thrust upward into the reinforced ceiling with the effort of a toddler tossing around a rag-doll.

Whatever it was, its aim had been the derelict fractured orb of metal and wire sitting center-stage inside the reactor. Hunter knew it was as alien as their refugee comrades and admitted to himself that humans needed to learn to keep their noses out of business that was not their own.

Chernobyl had destructed in April 1986, the result of nuclear testing gone awry. That accident had shaped an entire generation of people. Without that orb, whatever it was, this place might still be livable. Cancer rates wouldn't have skyrocketed. Mothers might have been able to carry children to term and when they did carry to term have those precious babes be born without defect.

If humans had left well enough alone then there wouldn't be a piece of Earth left uninhabitable for the next twenty-thousand years, give or take a few centuries.

From what little they'd discovered, the Soviet space program had been involved. The case that had been beside the charred orb had proclaimed as much. He and his fellow soldiers hadn't had the time to study much of the room before that squid-worm thing had spiked the Energon readouts and erupted through the floor.

He jolted from his musings at seeing the big 'Bot, Autobot Leader Optimus Prime, walking their way. His hand was fisted around something, most likely the orb, and his battle mask was up. Jetfire, another ex-Decepticon-turned-Autobot, walked just behind and to the side of the sometimes-Mack truck. Jetfire was taller than Optimus by a good ten feet, but he stooped just a little and leaned into his cane.

He'd barely contained his disbelief to see an _old_ Transformer. It didn't seem possible.

Optimus stopped several feet before them, his eyes shining with emotion. He may have been a space-faring robot, but Hunter knew tension when he saw it. Optimus was not happy.

"What was it after, Optimus?" The Lt. Colonel asked of the larger being and, if he was honest, commanding officer. Optimus held rank over William Lennox if they were to group the Autobot faction in with the human faction entirely. Optimus was like a 5-Star Brigadier General as far as Hunter was concerned.

" _It_ , as you so phrase it, was after this." Optimus opened his hand to reveal the orb. It didn't look like anything special to Hunter, but what did he know? He was just a grunt in the grand scheme of things. Besides that, there was often more than met the eye when it came to anything involving the Transformers. "The being is what we call a Driller. They were primarily a work-force designed in the earlier times of Cybertron. They are remotely sentient and are fiercely loyal to their Masters. This one's Master was Shockwave."

"Shockwave? Isn't he one of Megatron's remaining Generals?" Lennox inquired, scratching at his shoulder nervously. Megatron only had two Generals left, unless he'd promoted another since Astrotrain defected to the Autobots six year ago, and they were Shockwave and Soundwave.

"He is." Jetfire grumbled from beside his leader. He stomped his cane into the ground once, an unsettling show of anger since his cane presently sported two jagged blades at the tip. "That slaggin' glitch is as bright as they come. A brilliant tactician and scientist, but that one had a couple of screws loose. He is one that has always had difficulty differentiating between what is right and wrong when it comes to his…studies."

"Why would he want that hunk of junk?" Hunter found himself asking, berating himself instantly when the two monoliths and his commander turned their attentions to him. He gulped down his trepidation as best he could. "I mean, it's nothing important, is it?"

"It is entirely important," Optimus seemed to snap at him. Hunter fought not to cower in the face of the big brute's ire. He wasn't a small man and was in peak physical condition, but even the biggest and strongest human alive would shy away from the automaton when he was in a mood. "This is an engine part from a long-lost ship."

"How long lost?" Lennox interrupted Hunter before he could stuff his foot back into his mouth. There was a very good reason why he hadn't advanced any father in rank in his twenty years of service. At thirty-eight years old he still had trouble controlling his wayward tongue.

"Hundreds of your years. That ship left Cybertron near the end of our War on our planet before we were forced to retreat into the stars and wage War there." Optimus was quiet for only a moment before continuing. "I would put the time of its departure from Cybertron at around the time that Buddha was born here on Earth."

"Buddha?" Hunter's eyes boggled. He wasn't bound by one religion, though he was not an atheist, either, but he had studied many religions while in college. He had found it enlightening. "Buddha was born in 486BC. Exactly how old are you guys?"

Him and his big mouth went ignored.

He was thankful for that.

"Come. There is much that must be done." Optimus turned his focus onto Jetfire. His fingers closed back over the orb, his whole frame once again overcome by rigidity. "Contact the General and have Samantha come in when we return. There is much that must be discussed."

"Shall I also invite the Director?" Hunter was never very good at reading the Transformers despite how much he worked with them, but he couldn't miss the revulsion in the Blackbird's tone. For as obscenely gentle and carefree as he'd seen them with Samantha, a girl no man of thirty-eight should _admire_ as he did, there was a distinctly different way to which they treated the rest of the human race.

He and his human comrades had earned a modicum of trust and respect with the Autobots. It had taken about a year's worth of time, but he'd managed to get on friendly terms with the alien robots. Their interactions with each other were far from smooth, but he'd played Call of Duty with Sideswipe while his twin brother Sunstreaker, having arrived planetside in the first year he'd come to N.E.S.T, sneered nearby and traded war-stories with the gun-toting Ironhide.

Four years and he still didn't know how Samantha Witwicky managed to ensnare them as she did.

The girl, and that was what she had been when he'd first met her at his debriefing, was a definite bombshell. She was brutally scarred across her face, but even with that physical imperfection she possessed poise and dignity rare for someone her age. He hadn't discovered until he'd been initiated into the select organization that she had the final say on who did and did not join the team. He hadn't believed it at first.

In nearly five years he'd come to see quite easily that she pulled the strings in N.E.S.T.. There were others with official ranks in the N.E.S.T. division that were higher on the pedestal than her, technically speaking, but the Autobots didn't listen to them. Not really. He'd seen it for himself. If she spoke, they listened. If she asked for anything, it was made ready and available immediately. If she ordered, they fell in line like ants at a picnic.

She was more than just a Liaison and Ambassador for their kind. She was…something else. Something other. Something _more_.

He didn't have the rank himself to find out how much more.

"Immediately," Optimus intoned to his soldier, the rumbling bass of his voice sending chills down Hunter's spine. He _never_ wanted to be on the receiving end of the leader's anger.

It was only a couple of minutes later that shots were heard fired near the courtyard they'd entered in on. He and several others, tailed by Wheeljack and Longarm acting as escorts, hurried to where the commotion had come.

Lennox took point as they approached the government-issued sedan that Voskhod, their contact, had been driving. The man's vehicle was utterly destroyed. Hunter held back with the others as they circled, not daring to approach any closer. The frame was littered with bullet-holes, some larger than the others and charred around the edges. Plasma blasts. There was a thick odor in the air. It smelled like lighter-fluid. The sedan was on the precipice of a catastrophic explosion.

Inside, seated behind the driver's side wheel, sat Voskhod. The heavy-set male with a salt-and-pepper beard and black trench coat, a man with enough joviality to be called Santa Claus under the right circumstances, was sprawled across his seat haphazardly. Blood stained the shattered windows. The man's body was riddled with as many shots as his vehicle was. His chest was struck the worst. It took no more than a cursory glance to know that the man was dead.

"Who would do this, Sir?" One of the First Private's, Reynolds, called out in a shaken voice. The kid was new. As disgusted as he was to say such a thing, the youth would eventually grow accustomed to seeing death in his present line of work. While one might not like it, it was also unavoidable.

"I don't know," the Colonel mumbled, waving for everyone to back up.

They ducked behind already cracked and decaying walls as the sedan ignited in a blaze of destructive glory.

Its lone occupant, Voskhod, might have been smiling in the end.

* * *

 _Well, this is awkward_ , Samantha thought to herself as she sat with her ankles crossed in front of Bruce Brazo's desk.

The man had her surrounded.

He was sitting behind a white metal and glass desk, his hands steepled. He wore a gaudy grey suit – much too matchy-matchy – with a pretty blue handkerchief in the breast pocket. His hair was almost all white with a brush-over. Not for lack of hair, but more for added volume. He was smirking as though he were on the winning side of a chess match and she was his opponent about to be put in check.

He didn't intimidate her in the slightest. The pictures, though, were unsettling.

The man had at least half a dozen framed pictures of himself in his office. They were all looking at her. In each he seemed to be gloating in some way, shape, or form. Most of them were too staged to be real. She could imagine him going into a photographer's studio, donning a pair of martial artist's training gear, and setting himself up for imagined glory.

It was sad, really.

He continued to stare at her over his fingertips, pointedly ignoring her resume and portfolio in front of him. Was he trying to intimidate her? If he was he had no idea of what true intimidation was. He hadn't sat in front of the World's Leaders or stared down the end of Megatron's blaster. So instead of flinching, as she imagined others would in her situation under such scrutiny, she just smiled serenely.

It was several minutes before his composure broke first. She could see it in his eyes first. The wrinkled edges began to twitch and his smirk faltered a hair. His obviously bonded teeth hid behind disappointed lips when she didn't so much as flinch.

With a controlled sigh he began to thumb through her resume. There was much she left out of it due to the sensitivity of it, but what was there was impressive. Inside the folder she knew he would find her school grades, both high-school and college, as well as her degrees. He would also see an impressive list of charities and volunteer events she actively took part in. She removed her own entrepreneurship off the books simply because she did not wish to be denied this position because he was going to have a testosterone-inspired ego-trip.

She watched his ill-manicured eyebrows pitch into his hairline before he cleared his throat, schooled his features, and turned his attention back onto her.

"What brings you here, Miss Witwicky?"

"The open job position, Sir," she grinned back at him, adding a little sweetness to the gesture to keep it from being too sassy. He wasn't amused.

"Obviously," he murmured with distaste. He cleared his throat before gesturing to her file. "You come with high recommendations. Your resume is quite…impressive. I have to wonder why you chose here of all places to start your career."

 _Oh, if only you knew what I've done already_.

If she had meant to speak, which she hadn't, she would have been interrupted. Mister Brazo took up his own mantel immediately, glee and self-righteousness ringing in every syllable. "You are here because we are the best. Accuretta Systems, the leader in telecom, aerospace. Grossed seventeen billion in profit last year. When you work here, doors open for you everywhere! We've had interns go on to be Congressmen and CEOs of their own companies!" He pointed to where she was seated dramatically. "I sat where you were once and look at me now!"

 _Yeah, a pompous windbag with poor fashion sense and in need of a reality-check_.

"Tell me why I should hire you. Impress me."

"What would you have me say?" She brushed her fingers along her right temple. She could feel a headache coming on. It was a mixture of the overabundance of cologne she could smell on Brazo and distress coming from Optimus and a few of the others that were on mission with him. She was tempted to comm them, but that tended to give her migraines when used at such distances. He would still be in the Ukraine right now so she would wait.

She was also having stomach pains. She had been since morning. It was why she'd woken up so early. She hadn't gotten sick with any type of virus or bacterial infection since Mission City when she'd begun fusing with the Allspark, but with her nanites constantly fighting off the deterioration of her eye since Egypt she knew she was more susceptible to getting sick. There'd been a bad stomach flu going through the neighborhood and she supposed it was finally her turn to spend a little quality time hovering over the toilet.

"Are you a go-getter? Do you go above and beyond? Are you a take-charge kind of gal?" He shook his head at her, answering his own questions. "I don't want that here. We don't need it. No brownnosers and no upstarts. I just need someone who can get the job done."

"And you don't think I'm that kind of girl?" She quirked a brow.

He was on the cusp of answering her when something behind her caught his full attention. He leaned precariously off to the side, squinting to see through the ultra-clean glass of his office wall. His lips pulled down into a fierce frown. He was immediately at his phone.

"Who allowed Susan to use the red cup when we are so obviously on the yellow floor? This is anarchy, Curtis. I will not stand for this blatant display of incongruity. Fix. It." He slammed the phone down, ignoring its rattle on the glass top. Samantha gave her own scowl to see Brazo's assistant hustling to the poor woman's desk, berating her in front of everyone, and then rudely snatching the offending cup from her desk. "Now where were we? Ah, yes, are you…"

"I think we are finished here," Sam snapped, rising to her feet. Her heels gave her the height advantage over Brazo as he hastened to his own feet.

"What happened?" Did he look worried? She thought he did.

"With all due respect, Sir, I do not intend to work for anyone that disrespects his employees like you just did." She shook her head sadly. "I would suggest hiring instead for a human resources consultant. It is obvious that you need some coaching on how to work with your employees as well as a welcoming face for incoming prospects. Good day, Sir."

She turned to leave, setting her hand on the doorknob. Just as it began to swing open Brazo slammed his own hand against it from behind her. It shut with a loud bang that had the floor associates looking up with wide eyes.

He looked her over carefully.

"You'd turn down this job. I respect your honor. It's a rare quality to have nowadays." He gestured back towards the chair she'd just vacated. "Please, take a seat. We'll continue."

"You misunderstand my sincerity," she chided him with a bland look. His eyes widened. "Your business may be earning, but it will only go so far with the attitude you have. Great businesses have been ruined by poor leadership. Again, Sir, I wish you a good day."

"Please," he breathed out pleadingly, all but going to his knees before her. It was her turn to stumble back in shock. "Don't go. All of my other interviewees checked out. You're my only option left. I need you to take this position; _now_ if at all possible."

"Now?" She fell into the door. Her hand hit her chest over her heart in shock. "You can't be serious."

"Look, you're right. I'm horrible with the public. I've been through three secretaries and four human resources personnel this year alone. I'm working on it." He backed away from her and rushed to his desk. He pulled a large file from one of the top drawers. "I need this delivered. Typically if you worked in the mail room I wouldn't have you do this, but my last courier…uh…left us. Your credentials are outstanding and you look the part. Please, I'm trusting you to do this for me. I'll hire you at double the salary of the other mail room clerks and have a benefits package you won't find anywhere else."

She didn't know what it was that made her do it. She'd had the feeling the other day that she had to be here, yes, but she'd been serious when she told him that he wasn't worth her time. She didn't take kindly to people treating others as though they were inferior.

After a pregnant pause she closed her eyes and prayed to God, Primus, and every Deity that ever existed that she was doing the right thing.

"Where do I have to go?"

* * *

"I'm here to see Dylan Gould," she queried politely to the alluring receptionist not even an hour later.

The building she'd come to, the coordinates supplied to her by the Allspark, was a swanky deco-fabulous piece of artwork in and of itself. It was pleasing to the eye to view and was quite bright on the inside due to windows lining either side of the building. She left her 1967 Triumph, a happy purchase she'd made to replace her moped some years ago, parked out front on the sidewalk. The helmet she left dangling by the handlebars.

No one would steal it in this neighborhood.

She walked in the direction she was pointed, clutching the file Brazo had given her to her chest. She was glad to have dressed as smartly as she had. She would have been uncomfortable otherwise in such a posh setting.

Standing at the end of the hallway she'd been directed she saw the man she sought. At least she hoped it was him. He wore a beaten brown bomber's jacket, a black button-up, and a silken tie that he hadn't bothered to tie around his neck. He was talking on his cell-phone, outwardly flustered. He began to spout obscenities when he finally caught sight of her.

The lecherous grin that spread across his face instantly disheartened her to him.

He hurriedly ended his call, barely managing to drum up and excuse, before striding cockily towards her. She pictured him as a rooster preening in front of a gaggle of hens. The man was one of the most handsome she had ever seen outside of a GQ magazine and he knew it. He relished in it. Undoubtedly he was used to getting whatever or _who_ ever he wanted.

"Hello. I'm Dylan Gould and you would be?" He held out a hand to shake. She noted immediately that it was a hand that hadn't seen much hard work. He got manicures and had almost no calluses.

She shook it anyway.

"Samantha Witwicky. I'm here to deliver a parcel from Bruce Brazo on behalf of Accuretta Systems." She handed him the file smoothly. He didn't even spare it a glance as he took it and threw the whole stack onto the nearby desk.

"You look familiar. I know that name as well." His head was cocked off to the side as he considered her. She stood tall before him; not in a bid to impress, but to show she wasn't affected by him. "Ah! You were the one on the news channels several years ago when the Lincoln was destroyed."

"I am."

"A shame that was. They never did make that movie after the publicity stunt, did they?" Dylan Gould, just like the rest of the human populace, had been made to believe that some hackers had taken advantage of the 'terrorist attack' on the U.S.S. Lincoln to promote an up-and-coming action film in which she was to star in. It had taken quite a bit of teamwork from N.E.S.T., the general governments, and a select crew of videographers and digital special effects artists to make the ruse believable.

She'd had a year worth of job requests from casting directors over the planet before the hype had finally died down.

"Your business is beautiful," she began by way of distraction. She glanced at both of the cars set on display. The Delahaye was particularly impressive. She reached out with a tendril of Allspark energy, touching gingerly for signs of sentient life. She found none.

"Thank you Samantha. May I call you Samantha?" She nodded in ascent, allowing the familiarity for now. He moved up beside the Delahaye and caressed it as though it were his lover. Slow, languid strokes that were meant to evoke provocation.

She wasn't moved.

"It's one of my favorite pieces. Designed by the French." She knew that, but she wasn't up to parlaying with him. She probably wasn't supposed to be dallying, either, but she figured it wouldn't hurt anything. Brazo needed her, badly, or else he wouldn't have been begging her earlier. He could work on her clock for the moment.

"Come."

Sam didn't enjoy being spoken to as though she were a dog, but she followed the man anyway. Her heels clacked against the marble floor as he led her through his building. The many young women he employed followed him with their eyes covetously. They were all beautiful in their own rights.

 _Sure gets around, doesn't he?_ She snickered at this as she noted more than one woman turning baleful eyes her way. There was a great deal of unneeded jealousy circling around her like buzzards over fresh meat.

Dylan led her into his garage.

It wasn't a typical guy's garage, however. She didn't see leaking oil cans and dirtied rags lying about. There were no tools hanging from cork-boards. What she was led to could aptly be described as a mausoleum for cars. A showroom, perhaps. He had row upon row of classic and exotic cars. Some were a combination of both. This man was proud of his wealth. He luxuriated in it and she dared to guess that he flaunted it.

The man gushed over his vehicles. She listened with a partial ear as he rambled on and on about the rarer pieces he owned and the eccentricities of another. All of these facts she already knew or didn't care to remember on her own. Inwardly she was plotting out her exit strategy. She didn't want to be overly rude, but he was a snob. Her company was better kept elsewhere.

"This must all sound so boring to you." His tone suggested he was put-out by her disinterest.

"It's not boring at all," she hurried to explain. "I just know cars and what you're telling me is, frankly, stuff that I already know."

"Oh? You are an aficionado, then. Tell me, what car do you drive, Samantha?" His grin was teasing. Had he not shown himself to be so haughty she would have thought him devilishly handsome.

"I drive a few different cars. My last companion was a 2011 Camaro." She slipped purposely by saying 'companion' instead of something less humanized, but people didn't often read too deeply into things spoken by others. There was a good chance that he would assume she gave character to her vehicles because she felt a connection to them borne of love. Again, not untrue.

"Outstanding ride. For being Chevrolet the Camaro has some unique features." _You have no idea_. "You have superb taste."

"Thank you." She looked to the wall and saw the time. Feigning surprise she hurried towards the door they'd come in through. "If you'll excuse me, Mister Gould. I have to be going back to Accuretta now."

"Call me Dylan. Please." The lecher was back and keeping step with her. Unlike Brazo, Dylan still stood taller than she. "Let me escort you outside. A beautiful woman shouldn't be left unattended."

"Believe me, Mister Gould," she kept with the formality purposely. His jaw twitched with anger, but he wisely kept silent. "I am never without attention."

She grabbed her sling bag from the reception desk, just exactly where she had been asked to leave it, and quickly slipped off her heels to switch out for the flats she kept in the main pouch of her bag. In her hurried movements the hem of her pant leg pulled up nearly to her knee before she unhooked the dainty buckle of her heel from the fabric.

"Of that I have no doubt." His eye darted down to the intricate pattern of silver on her leg. The 'tattoo' had been placed on her by Ratchet and Jolt seven years ago as a way for them to always know her whereabouts in the event of an accident. It also acted as an impromptu monitor for her heart rate, body temperature, and various other functions of her central nervous system. It tattled on her every time.

Her eyes narrowed on the man. Did he know? How could he?

"What an interesting tattoo. It looks like metal!" The wonderment in his tone disillusioned her to his possible knowledge of what the tattoo really was. Surely he couldn't know. She hadn't even known what it was until they had placed it onto her.

"Yes. I got it while I was still in high-school. My mother had a fit." Judy had had a tantrum that could have rivalled any two-year old crying over a spilled cone of ice-ream, but there was nothing that any of them could do about it. Unless she chopped her own leg off the tattoo was staying until her dying day.

 _As the saying goes, why chop off your nose to spite your face?_

Just as she'd thought her bike remained untouched in front of the marble statue set before Dylan Gould's building. The man whistled appreciatively behind her as she pulled her helmet into her hands and set about strapping it on.

"I guess you really are an enthusiast. This bike has been very well maintained." She wanted to slap his hand away when he reached out and stroked a finger along the maroon and white tank. The seat she'd had reupholstered by a restorations expert, but the rest of the bike remained as it had been when she bought it. Its previous owner had gone to great lengths to keep it looking pristine.

"Thank you." She mounted the bike fluidly, revving the engine up as she did so. It hummed underneath her. The rumble of the engine settled any anxiety she might have had simply because it reminded her of her mechs and femme. It wasn't them, but the familiar sound warmed her down to the bone.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Samantha. I hope that we will be seeing each other again in the future?" Dylan stepped back away from she and her bike, his hands slinking down into his pockets.

Sam snapped her visor down, tying her braid off into a loose bun just beneath the base of her helmet so that it wouldn't get caught in anything as she rode. Through the slightly tinted plastic she looked the male over a final time, pitying over the fact that such a fine specimen had to possess such a woeful personality.

"I don't think so," she spoke into the helmet softly, knowing that he wouldn't be able to hear her.

That being said she rode off towards Accuretta and then, hopefully, home.

She was ready for a slice of that pie.


	3. Chapter 3: Unreachable

**Chapter Three: Unreachable**

The Health and Human Resources building near the outer reaches of downtown Washington D.C. had seen better days. It had been an abandoned building for roughly ten years after the building's employ had moved into the newer, more luxuriant part of the city. Many of the upper windows were shattered and the stone appeared derelict at best.

It had been the perfect location to settle one of the Autobot bases in their later developments.

Samantha found herself waved in by the human sentries stationed at the outer wall of the twin blockages surrounding the building. In earlier times somebody might have questioned why there was such a heavy guard outside of an HHR building, but that was neither there nor then. Proceeding the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, an attack on humans by humans, security had become the name of the game. No one batted an eye at the ill-used building and the stronghold build up around it.

She swerved her bike around military transports of all kinds, flight equipment included, before rolling down into the subterranean levels via a remote-operated doorway. The vehicles shifted quickly from military-issue to something a bit more exotic as she rode deeper. These were not the standard-issue government transports anyone might see upon visiting a traditional base of operations.

At the end of the ramp she slid her bike up beside a Jeep that had seen better days. This vehicle was entirely normal. Human-made and driven.

"Glad you're here, Sam," Will Lennox greeted as he came to stand beside her. She pulled her helmet off, setting it onto the Jeep's hood.

"I couldn't not come." That was full truth. She couldn't ignore the Cybertronians. They were a part of her. The Allspark that she had become connected her to them on a genetic level, bound her to them even without the bonds she could form outside of that basic connection. They were the Allspark's children – _her_ children – and nothing would keep her from them.

Sam led her own way into the main lobby where the Autobots took up residence. There were a total of nineteen bases around Earth and the Cybertronians in occupancy shifted regularly. Depending upon their missions and where they were most needed they could shift in and out of a base quicker than a penny-pincher skipping out on the bill.

The original five that had 'first' landed were merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Since that time more had come. There was Sideswipe, Beachbreak, Longarm, Knockout, Arcee, Jolt, Savage, Mudflap and Skids before the Fallen had reared his ugly head. In the past six years more had come, heading the call she and Optimus had sent into the stars. Sideswipe's identical twin, Sunstreaker, had come next. He had taken on the same alt as his brother, just gold in color instead of Sides' silver. Wheeljack had come with him and taken on the alt of a Mercedes Benz E550. Mirage landed several months later and took on the terrestrial guise of a sleek red Ferrari Italia.

The Wreckers she didn't often see much of. The three had landed planetside together and had found a deep love of NASCAR racing together. They each, Roadbuster, Leadfoot, and Topspin, had scanned their favorite drivers' cars and taken them on as alts. The three were a bit rambunctious and not at all appropriate around most humans. She and Optimus, with backing from Ratchet, Ironhide, and Jazz, had decided that it was best that those three stay at one base unless desperately needed and they would have free reign to work on the Xanthium, the latest Autobot ship, or whatever little project that struck their fancy.

Smokescreen had landed with four others, Blurr, Bluestreak, Warpath, and Cliffjumper. The five had been aboard the same ship together for close to six-hundred years before they had heard her call.

Bluestreak was a talkative 'Bot with a frame that was colored a hazy sort of blue-grey. He'd taken on the alt of a Mitsubishi Lancer. Blurr, the ostentatious little whip, had assumed the role of a black and red Bugatti Veyron due to its, and _his_ , impossibly fast speeds. Blurr wasn't just quick physically. The 'Bot was as sharp as a tack and the Autobot Communications Officer. Warpath, as his name suggested, was a large mech that had a few more struts than cylinders. His alt was an all-black Black Knight assault vehicle, his appearance an amalgamation of human and Cybertronian tech. Cliffjumper, a ruddy orange Aston Martin Vulcan, was a frontliner like the identical twins and a bit of a hard nut to crack. He didn't really 'take' to anybody – with the exception of her once she'd initiated the bond. Smokescreen was what Sam, if put on the spot, would have called a psychiatrist. He helped a lot of his comrades with his keen intelligence and sedate personality, but he was not one to be trifled with. He'd assumed the shape of an older model Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, something she put at complete odds with his personality. She'd anticipated a higher-class sedan from him, not an off-roading vehicle.

Of course, that was not the end of who had allied with them. Jetfire, a mech old enough to have been alive when the Dynasty still lived, had defected to the Autobots before he had even known her. Astrotrain, previously one of Megatron's fierce Generals, had been a 'casualty of war'. If she hadn't bonded to him, reignited the line that connected him to the Allspark and claimed him as hers, things might have ended differently in Egypt. He had little choice but to defect and join with the Autobots. His prime objective was to keep her safe and, if at all possible, happy. Remaining with the Decepticons would have hindered that considerably.

Then there was Wheelie and Brains, her constant companions.

Speaking of…

"Hey! Let us out of this bag!" Wheelie didn't so much as wait for her go-ahead. He pulled the zipper open from the inside and crawled out of the backpack she still had fastened to her. Brains grumbled as he followed after his partner. Despite their small sizes, their body mass was great. They each weighed at least forty pounds. The relief she felt at the removal of their weight was immediate.

"What are you all dressed up for?" Will quirked his brow at her as they gathered up in front of where Optimus brooded in front of an engine part. Her brows pinched at seeing it. That part… The Allspark told her that it was a special model and had only been installed on one ship millennia ago.

"She got a job in the mail room," Wheelie snorted, rolling under the table. Brains hopped up onto the sleek surface instead and stared intently at the weathered piece of machinery. He reached out a servo as though to touch it, but pulled it back at the last second.

"Mmmhmmm. Doin' menial labor." Had he had a human face Sam knew the smaller of the 'Cons would have sneered at her choice of occupation.

"You can't be serious!" Will was affronted on her behalf. "Sam! You went to college and got some serious degrees under your belt. You've been inventing things that are bettering human life! Why would you choose to work in a _mail room_?!"

"That is her choice, Colonel Lennox," Ironhide rumbled from nearby. The only ones in Washington at the moment were he, Optimus, Mirage, Wheeljack, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, Ratchet, and of course Bumblebee. The younger of the twins, Skids and Mudflap, were on their way from where the Wreckers were prepping the Xanthium. It seemed that whether the human governments were in accordance or not, some of the Autobots were about to be making a trip.

"Honor it." Ironhide spoke with finality. He crossed his thickly-built arms over his chassis, his stance wide. He was on the defensive. Will looked at the black Weapon's Specialist for a brief second as though debating the situation before thinking better of arguing. It was a fight that no one wanted to have with the grumpy titan.

"Would somebody mind telling me why I have the CIA up my ass about this mystery raid in the Middle East?" The aged voice, both stern and clear, was accompanied by the clacking of high heeled shoes.

Sam sighed into her chest before turning to look up and in the direction in which Charlotte Mearing began her descent into the room. The other 'Bots, now transformed over into their bipedal forms with the exception of Optimus, didn't move from their designated posts. They remained motionless for two reasons; the first being that they were cowed by no one. The second reason was that they knew their stubbornness would just piss Mearing off.

The woman was competent, but she also had a silver spoon shoved right up her jazzercising backside.

Today she wore a smart grey suit, so unlike Brazo's had been, with a navy blue shirt and tie. Her hair was tied into a bun so tight that it made Sam's head hurt just looking at it. Her heels, which were a flare of navy and onyx with a cute peep toe, she walked right out of. Her assistant, a young woman who looked about as entertaining as a slab of wallpaper paste, set a pair of Nikes down in Mearing's direct path and scooped the rejected heels up within the same breath. Mearing slid into the sneakers without missing a single step.

Sam knew a practiced move when she saw one.

"Hello ma'am. I trust that your travels were safe and comfortable?" Lennox beamed at the woman, jovial now that he had someone that he could rib without threat of being stepped on. Not that the blonde would step on him. The Autobots would do all of the grunt work for her if she was so inclined to ask.

"What have I told you about calling me ma'am?" Mearing was glaring daggers now. "Do I look like a 'ma'am' to you?"

" _Ma'am_ ," Sam interrupted with a glower of her own shot at the older woman. "It is meant as a sign of respect just as I call any of my male associates that might be higher on the roster than myself 'Sir'. If you have a problem with that formality I suggest you give people an alternative to call you by."

Mearing and she stared off at each other severely.

Charlotte Mearing had been one of the individuals that Samantha rejected at first, but had come to accept as necessary. The woman was proficient at her job as the Director of Intelligent Affairs. She also, falsely, believed that she was the one that kept N.E.S.T. running. While Sam was acknowledged as Ambassador and Liaison, it was not widely known that since Egypt _she_ called the shots. The current President, Barrack Obama, had fallen into the same step in that regard as his predecessor had. Whenever it came to their alien allies, Samantha _always_ had the final say no matter who they had to baffle into thinking otherwise.

Sam was the first to turn her gaze away. The elder woman, she knew, would feel triumphant at having 'won' such a small battle of wills, but the truth was that Samantha just didn't feel like arguing with the woman. She was tired of the endless game of "my house is bigger than yours".

Let the woman think she had the upper hand.

"That facility in Iran was deconstructing the Energon Towers and the humans were attempting to reverse engineer it. No one was hurt," she told the other woman flatly, gazing down at the engine part with interest. Why was it here?

"These missions are required to run through me first, _Ambassador_ Witwicky." She spoke the word Ambassador as though it were a curse needing ritualistic cleansing.

Sam sighed. Deeply. "No, Miss Mearing, they are not. This mission required no excess funding as Astrostrain was their transport and permission to enter was already cleared with Iran's leader. The decommissioning of the Towers was done without his knowledge or permission and he was ready for his people to have an example made of themselves."

"See here, little girl, I don't…" The woman was cut off of badgering her by the deathly chill that descended upon the lobby. Sam didn't need to look to see the lethal intent brewing in the Autobots' optics. Mearing didn't, either, because she instantly backed away from her several steps and schooled her features. The woman was an avid poker player and a damned good one at that. She knew when to play and when to fold.

 _Time to fold, Charlotte_.

The anger was still palpable when Mearing decided to address the elephant in the room – or rather the brooding Peterbilt.

"What was so important that I had to be called away from my meeting this evening?" She shot a pointed look towards Optimus who still had not reverted back to his bipedal form. Her harrumph was loud when she met brown eye to blue optic with Ratchet. "Alien silent treatment?"

"No, Director Mearing. This is not that." Ratchet shook his great head, a mannerism he had picked up from the humans. "Optimus Prime is – simmering right now."

"'Bout ready tah blow is more like it!" Sideswipe gestured his arms outward in a show of force. He made it look as though he'd been holding a grenade in his arms and it had exploded, jolting his arms open. "C'mon, Prime! Give it to her!"

The transformation that Optimus undertook was possibly the quickest and most furious she had ever seen. When he was done he was stooped over Mearing, menace dripping from his very core. He pointed stiffly towards the engine part as he tore into the other woman.

"You _lied_ to us." This angry he sounded like Megatron in a fit. There was no calm and quiet. No serenity. There was only promised vengeance in his bass tone. "We were led to believe that all that your kind knew of us was revealed. _You lied_."

"Truths could not be told by those that did not know," Mearing replied in a bored tone. She was nonplussed by Optimus's aggression. Sam thought her a fool. It didn't really matter that the Autobots had sworn to never harm a human. For all of their differences, for being so alien, Cybertronians were as fallible as any human being. They could think and feel as freely. They were capable of breaking their words if the situation called for it. If Mearing thought that they were locked down by their word, she didn't deserve her position _at all_.

She snapped her fingers agitatedly, waving for her aid to go somewhere or do something. The younger lady immediately pulled out her cellphone and hurriedly asked for someone to be brought in.

Minutes later heavy human footfalls could be heard. Male footsteps.

The three that entered, none of them young, were instantly recognizable to Sam. Lennox choked on his own tongue beside her to see the man in the middle of the trio. His wizened face was alight with wonder – a kid opening his presents on Christmas morning.

"Please allow me to introduce two of the founding Directors for NASA and CAPCOM and Doctor Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men to step foot on the moon." Mearing moved to shake the astronaut's hand before stepping aside to showcase the Cybertronians assembled. "Sir, Optimus Prime and his fellow Autobots."

"From one space traveler to another, it's truly an honor," Aldrin spoke in his shaking old voice. Sam smiled a little to see the joy that lit his wrinkled face. This was one of the greatest moments of his life. She could read it on his face and in the twinkle of his eye.

"The honor is mine," Optimus intoned graciously. He pulled himself to stand, picking her up on his way. She controlled her startled eep and pushed calm and comfort through their connection. He was unsettled and needed gentility showered on him to maintain a diplomatic front. He was bordering on a breakdown.

The three newcomers, and even Mearing, startled to see her being clutched by the big 'Bot and held near to his chassis. His spark thrummed and pulsed for her. It sought her warmth and the familiarity of her touch. She welcomed it into her own heart, soothing as best she could without faltering in her own external appearance. Had they been alone she'd have snuggled right into his metallic armor and hummed with delight.

"And you would be, young lady?" Aldrin asked of her, not judgmental. He was merely curious.

"I am Cybertronian Ambassador and Liaison, Samantha Jane Witwicky, Sir. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She nodded her head respectfully in lieu of a handshake. At this height she wouldn't even be able to kick her foot into his hand if he raised it let alone greet him properly. The elder man chuckled good-naturedly.

"The pleasure is mine. I assure you."

McCandless, one of the directors, cleared his throat. "As nice as this is, we have a few matters to discuss. I believe we were asked to come to help enlighten matters revolving around the moon missions of the sixties."

Johnson, the second director, cleared his throat.

"Our missions were the direct result of an alien crash landing on the moon's surface. Sector 7 at the time had already been in the works of reverse engineering NBE-One for many years and we had developed ships that could carry us from Earth to the moon with that technology." He tapped at his suit jacket nervously, clearing his throat several more times. It sounded to Sam like he might suffer from Lung Cancer. It was a wet, wholly sickened sound. "When we landed we discovered that the Soviets had already been there. Unmanned missions, admittedly, but they were the first to respond to the crash."

"My team and I were sworn to secrecy by our Commander and Chief," Aldrin mumbled tiredly, still looking at the faceplates around him in wonder. She felt through the bonds that they were attempting to be respectful, but knew that they held little curiosity towards the elderly man despite his enthusiasm. Having her in the room was a double-edged sword. She grounded them, but she was also a distraction. They were highly attuned to her and she struggled for a balance between giving in to their worshipful instincts and making them shut her out of their conscious thoughts.

"There were five subsequent missions to the moon before the project was terminated. We gathered as many samples as we could and catalogued as many pictures as possible. All of it has been locked away since."

Sam wished she had access to one of their computers at the moment. The Allspark knew much about human history from what it had gathered while at the Hoover Dam in Sector 7's hands, had even supplied information to her about the moon missions, but it was not all-knowing. If she had access to one of their computers, though, she could hack into the systems and acquire data that wouldn't have seen the light of day for centuries if ever again.

No sense crying over spilt milk.

"So the Soviets collected the fuel-orb before you landed?" She hazarded the guess, leaning forward so that she leaned against Optimus's fingers. If he loosened them she would fall and suffer horrific injuries if not death, provided she landed in just the right way. He wouldn't, though. She trusted the leader with her life. "Found out it was a power source and thought they knew how to harness it?"

"Nailed it in one, Miss Witwicky." Johnson grimaced. "It was not the proudest day in human history."

"Neither was Hiroshima or the Nazi Internment Camps." Several of them gave her horrified and flabbergasted looks. She merely shrugged her shoulders. "Human history is riddled with horrible crimes and injustices done. We are a young race," here she flicked a hand towards the mechs by way of explanation and comparison, "and are prone to making stupid mistakes. Some of the repercussions are a little hard to deal with, however."

The quiet of the lobby was unsettling. Samantha pushed her breath out of her nose, slightly upset with herself for having made an already delicate situation downright uncomfortable.

"Did you search the crash vault?" Ironhide rumbled the inquiry, his head cocked off to the side. Mearing and her three guests looked up with wide eyes.

 _Guess that answers that question_.

"That ship carried with it a technology that could have changed the tides in our War." Optimus clutched her closer to himself, seeking shelter. "And with it went its Captain and the technology's inventor."

"Who was that, Optimus?" She asked aloud, turning her head to peer up at him over her shoulder. Her hands she stroked rhythmically against his fingers. It kept them both calm.

"Vector Prime." Her eyes widened dramatically at hearing 'Prime' escape from his vocoder. Optimus shook his head, the gears in his neck whirring faintly as he did so. "He was Prime beside Sentinel before the duty of a Prime was held by only one. He was a brilliant scientist."

"Is," she corrected faintly as she tapped a beat into his finger. "For all that we know he _is_ a brilliant scientist. He may not be deactivated, Optimus, and if he's still on that ship…"

"The Xanthium is already being prepared for departure." Optimus turned and handed her over to her Guardian Bumblebee. He stood tall, his shoulders set. His stare was foreboding when Mearing made to balk. "We are leaving to retrieve Vector Prime and his pillars. May you pray that we reach them before the Decepticons do."

* * *

The plush leather seat she'd been sequestered into was extremely comfortable. She had a microfiber throw drawn over her, the ballet flats she'd worn earlier stashed under the computer console until she needed them. A Gatorade had been provided along with some saltine crackers.

Her stomach was still upset.

She held her hand over her abdomen, willing the discomfort and nausea to go away. It had been years since she'd gotten sick and it wasn't a nice feeling at all. Ratchet had attempted to get her permission to do a scan when he'd noted her pain through the bond and the slightly skewed readouts provided to him by the tattoo on her leg, but she had declined easily. He needed to leave with Optimus immediately, utilizing Jetfire's warp, in order to reach the Xanthium in time for launch.

"You okay?"

That husky baritone brought a smile to her lips immediately. She swiveled her chair with a tap to the console with her foot in order to watch him approach.

Hunter Mason was a gorgeous male that she just loved to look at. His face and chin were wide-set. There was nothing delicate about him. He had Icelandic blue eyes and a Texan accent that could make a girl's panties weep right off. His dark brown hair he kept long, growing down past his shoulders, and often pulled back in a low-slung tie. His nose had an aristocratic perk to it over thinner lips. He stood at an impressive height of six-foot-eight and was corded with muscle. His hands were callused from both a life in the military as well as childhood on the farm. He was also a gentleman through and through.

He was the kind of men women _should_ dream about.

Hunter dropped into a seat across from hers, setting his arms to his thighs and hands hanging between his open knees. His stare was focused and sent her nerves haywire. She felt her cheeks blush and she ducked her head.

"Oh, I'm fine. Just a stomach ache."

"Did Ratchet the Hatchet check you over?" He reached his tanned hand out slowly, the size of it daunting compared to hers. It was like a catcher's mitt comparatively. He stuttered to a halt before touching her much as Brains had earlier to the fuel-orb.

"He doesn't need to. It's just a stomach bug, I'm sure. Most of my neighborhood has had it already. It's my turn with it now." She grinned at him cheerfully in an effort to dispel the worried tilt to his lips. He was beginning to sport a light beard. It made her heart flutter to see it dotting his cinnamon-tinted cheeks. "I didn't think you were stationed here."

"I came back with Colonel Lennox from the Ukraine. You're stuck with me for the moment." His smirk was less lecherous than Dylan Gould's had been, but seductive all the same. He was fourteen years older than she, but she desired him just as he seemed to desire her.

 _I've come a long way since high-school. Who would have thought that years ago I never would have let a man touch me and now I'm lusting after a man that is close enough to being able to be my father?_ He'd be a young father, but still…

"Why didn't you go home to rest? The Xanthium will get Optimus and Ratchet to the moon and back before daybreak. You could catch a few zzz's before then in your own bed." _Join me?_ The dirty thought she left unspoken. No need to be presumptuous.

"I'll wait for them to get to the ship before I head home. I want to see what they find." She indicated the screen that had yet to light up. While no humans were going on this particular mission due to the rigorous requirements of the body before space travel, especially on an Autobot ship, there was a human-made drone being used beyond the Autobots' own recordings to document their movements.

"If you're sure."

"I am." She pulled the throw tighter around herself, her feet tucked under her backside. She closed her eyes on Hunter's intense stare. He wasn't threatening despite his size, not to her, but she was afraid of what _she_ might do.

She wasn't immune to her more human desires. She wanted him. Badly. She wanted to see him laying on her sheets, his big body spread out before her in offering. She wanted to lay on him and sink into his arms. She wanted to feel him inside her. She wanted to wake up in the morning and look up into his handsome face. She wanted to make breakfast for him and share their dinners together. She fantasized about talking about their days over lasagna or a pot-roast, planning on secreted dates away from prying eyes and optics.

She couldn't have what she wanted.

It destroyed her on the inside to know that she would outlive him by millennia. It wasn't just him, though. It was everyone. Humans. She wasn't one any longer, not entirely, and she would have to watch as everyone she loved and cared for that were human die before her. She'd have to watch them grow older and weaker. She'd watch as Death crept in, stealing their years away like a hooded marauder.

She couldn't do that to herself.

It would destroy her on the inside.

She drifted for a short time in her chair, letting herself be hypnotized by his steady, deep breathing. He smelled good. He didn't drown himself in cologne like Brazo had. He wore something, yes, but it was muted. His own muskier scent came through it all…a woodsy sort of smell that reminded her of the northern pines after a rainstorm.

It was Brains that woke her up by plucking at her ticklish toes. She squealed, lurching forward to swat the miscreant away from her. He and Wheelie laughed joyfully while Hunter chuckled.

"They've landed."

Her full focus went to the screen. It was divided into three parts, the smallest and most pixelated one belonging to the human-made drone. The other two were as clear as though she were watching a pre-recorded movie.

The two 'Bots jogged 'slowly' for the crashed ship. The moon's surface was more like talcum powder than sand, the trails of dust left behind from their footfalls a mist of grey on the inky horizon. The ship wasn't large in comparison to what she knew they were able to make, such as the Xanthium. The _Altrax_ , the long-lost ship, had been designed with evasion in mind. Its sleeker design made for easier escape. Its cannons were destroyed, much of the hull breached from both impact and prior damage.

They entered the ship with quiet reverence, their bonds thrumming in her heart with echoed sadness. The others watched, too, from across the world. She felt their shared sorrow over the loss of this ship so many vorns ago, the remembered loss of hope. No ship and later no Allspark. Their race had been doomed.

Optimus moved unerringly towards the flight-deck, not glancing purposely towards the offlined soldiers prostrate in their chairs. His scanners read them in an offhanded way, showing no signs of life. He'd known he would find nothing there.

The blonde knew as Optimus knelt down and thrust his servo into a constructed hole in the floor that even if the astronauts had known about the vault there would have been no way to access it. Only another Cybertronian, one of command position in the Autobot faction, could have opened the portal beneath.

Several glyphs lit along the floor in a circle before panels shifted and pulled back. The mech that rose up from beneath did not do so of his own volition. It was his chair that rose with the activation of the mechanism. Five pillars, perhaps as tall as she was and as wide, hovered around him. One glowed with an eerie red light, floating up into the air high above the others.

The mech was as big as Sentinel had been in her dream. He, too, had a 'braided' beard, though his was longer. Where Jetfire's shard-like 'hairs' clanked together, Sam had the distinct impression that Vector Prime's would tinkle. He also had what she would have otherwise called sideburns on a human. The vents certainly looked like them. There was a crest over his 'brow' similar to Sentinel's accompanied by jagged – i.e. bushy – eyebrows. The pauldrons over his wide shoulders were chained with gold. Decorative pieces. His chassis jutted outward like a torpedo only with a concave center. He was all red and gold with twinges of silver interspersed.

 _He looks like a robot Santa_.

"His signatures are faint, but they are there." Ratchet collected the pillars gently as Optimus gathered up Vector Prime's frame. "He is in stasis. He ran out of fuel long ago. I assume he went into stasis to conserve what little reserves of Energon he still had."

The look on Optimus's faceplates…

Her heart tore in two to see the forlorn expression he wore through Ratchet's optics. This War weighed heavily on them all, but Optimus bore the brunt of its weight. He was like Sisyphus, rolling the boulder up the hill only to watch it roll back down again. He fought with everything he had, he gave all that he was, and still it never seemed enough.

:: Come home, Optimus. :: She sent the comm to him privately, relishing in the instantaneous migraine it gave her only because she knew he would find strength in hearing her voice. :: Come back home to me. ::

:: At your command. ::

Optimus turned, returning to the Xanthium with Vector Prime in his arms, Ratchet trailing with the pillars held loosely in his. The drone, the _rover_ , sent by the humans with them was narrowly left behind in their haste to return to Earth.

"Hey, you're sweating. Are you sure you're okay?" Hunter touched a tentative finger to her cheek. She leaned into it for only a moment, basking in the touch, before pulling herself away. She couldn't do this.

"I'll be okay. Sudden headache." _Migraine_. "No big deal." _Big,_ _ **big**_ _deal_.

She rose from the chair slowly, slipping on her flats as she went. Wheelie and Brains, despite their lack of manners and abysmal social skills, had pulled them out from under the console for her and even tied the laces up with practiced grace.

She knelt to stroke their helms lovingly.

"I really don't get those two," Hunter grumbled as he leaned back into his chair for the first time since coming to sit beside her. "They're total pains in the asses and yet they dote after you like well-trained pets. What'd you use? Dog biscuits?"

"Screws," she joked, folding up the throw and setting it down onto her vacated seat. Afterwards she turned to face the large male, her heart beating heavily against her ribcage and her stomach igniting in a riot of fluttering butterfly-wings. "It was nice to see you again, Hunter."

"You, too, Sam."

She wanted to reach out and hug him. Better yet she ached to kiss him. Plaster his body against hers and suck the air right from his pale pink lips.

Instead she mustered up a friendly wave and dashed off, Wheelie and Brains running to keep up with her longer stride.

She never saw Hunter staring after her longingly, but in the depths of her soul she felt the same stirring for him.

 _I can't do this_.

* * *

 **Note :** Has anyone else noticed that the Transformers fandom has shrunken considerably in size or has my writing just gotten poorer over the years? My first installment had hundreds of followers. In the most recent years it hasn't even been close to that amount in any of them. It seems that other great stories, when I've peeked into them, have as few a followers as mine does.

Pity.


	4. Chapter 4: Awakening

**Chapter Four: Awakening**

The short Asian male was a total creeper.

Samantha handed off a boxed package to Matt Sneider, an obvious baseball fanatic, patently ignoring his gushing over the autographed baseball he'd ordered and had shipped to his office so that his fiancé wouldn't find out about the money reserved for their honeymoon was being spent on other frivolities.

Her attention was instead fixed on the man lurking in the corner of said office. He wasn't trying to hide himself – not well at any rate. Wasn't even attempting to be inconspicuous. He was just _staring_.

Sam tucked her braid back over her shoulder, ignoring one woman who remarked nearby in a mixture of disbelief, disgust, and amazement that she bothered to keep it so long, and pushed her rolling mail cart further down the hall. The male trailed after her, ducking like a cartoon-styled character behind anything he could find to 'hide' himself. He even used the potted fern set up beside the water fountain on the green floor.

Unbelievable.

She wasn't even sure why she had come in to Accuretta today with Vector Prime having been brought in that morning by Optimus and Ratchet. The medic was tweaking the locked-down Prime's systems so that Optimus could use the Matrix of Leadership, which he stashed beside his Spark in its chamber after Egypt, to recharge the once-Leader. She and Optimus had discussed the possibility of her using the Allspark to spark, not pun intended, some life back into the titan, but had decided against it. There were too many persons involved that couldn't be trusted.

Too many that wouldn't understand.

The Matrix was their next best bet.

She would attend once Ratchet got Vector Prime ready that night, but there really was no reason for her to be at Accuretta beyond the simple fact that she still had that niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach.

But what, on God's green Earth, did that little man want from her?!

She turned abruptly around the next corner, pushing the cart so that it rolled into one of the still empty cubicles in the building. She hunkered herself behind the wall and waited patiently.

The man's head was the first to peak around and she nabbed it. An unholy squeal of outrage she silenced as she tugged him forward in a headlock and jammed her knee into his diaphragm. He choked on his cry at the force of her hit. She leaned down toward his ear, whispering in a menacing tone she may or may not have adapted from Megatron's growling timbre, "what do you want from me, human?"

She dragged him into the bathroom, the men's room because the ladies room was being repainted, and slammed him into one of the stalls. She still danced for the sheer joy of it and it kept her body well-toned, but she also didn't live for extended stints with the Cybertronians and human soldiers without picking up a few tricks. The nanites in her blood had also reinforced her bones and tissues with alien tech. She was stronger than the average human now. More resilient.

The man, nerdy and clearly wide-eyed behind his thick-framed glasses, gaped at her.

"Explain." She kicked the door shut and snapped the lock in place. The man, whoever he was, stumbled out of the stall. His hands were shaking a little, but he'd at least regained some composure.

"You're the girl from the news," he stated unnecessarily, his accent thick. He pulled a manila folder from his suit jacket and pressed it into her hands. She glared at the offending parcel before looking back at him.

"And what is this?"

"I'm Wang and you are in _deep_ Wang. You dig?" She cocked an eyebrow at the man that was growing a bit manic in his speech. He paced the restroom like a caged animal. He was caged, too. She wasn't letting him out; not until she was satisfied.

"They watch and they listen. They're _everywhere_. I can't go to the government, but _you_ can." He approached her as if to grab her, but the narrow-eyed look she sent him had him scurrying back again. Her eyes frightened people when they took on the glow she felt in them now. Their lavender hue was abnormal under the most ideal of circumstances. Mike had told her that they had a haunted quality to them on of the last times she visited him.

"They want us all silenced. The ones who know of the Dark Side." Something in her mind flicked, a realization of sorts. The Dark Side of the moon, better known as the far side. What did he know of it? Could he know of the Atlax?

"Who locked this door?!" Brazo's falsely brave timbre echoed through the door she leaned against. She felt it pound behind her back and caught the handle jiggling out of the corner of her eye. "Open up right now and I may not fire you! Disrespect!"

"Is this all you followed me for?" She held up the envelope. "This is what you wished to give me? Nothing else?"

"They're everywhere," Wang hushed, poising a silencing finger in front of his lips.

"All right then." She flicked the lock and moved away swiftly, giggling like a schoolgirl to see Brazo tumble into the restroom like a ton of bricks. He'd apparently been attempting to shove all of his weight into it and her movement had taken him by surprise.

"What you lookin' at, dawg?" Wang flicked his hand, attempting to come off as superior and only managing to look spastic as his hand swung this way and that on his wrist. "Gotta go. So much work to do. So much _dangerous_ work."

Sam watched him go, Brazo still laying near her feet. When she turned her passive gaze down she saw Brazo looking up at her with a flabbergasted expression written across his artificially tanned face. He was closer to orange than bronze.

"Good afternoon Mister Brazo," she greeted and dismissed in the same sentence. She stepped over his splayed form as she exited after Wang.

She didn't see the little man anywhere.

Sighing to herself, she pulled the Cybertronian Bluetooth, a device she so rarely had use of in these days, and triggered the call to Wheelie and Brains. She didn't bother collecting her cart. There were more important matters that needed to be worked through.

:: Warrior Goddess! :: Wheelie cheered through the receptor upon answering her call. :: What is happening. There was a moment of distress in the bond before it went quiet. :: Like all of the others he dropped the mimicked behaviors he had adopted from humans, reverting to proper vocal patterns that were stilted for modern society.

"You there too, Brains?" At the smaller 'Con's confirmation she continued. "Need you to hack into the systems here for me, please. I'm a little indisposed at the moment. Find information on a man with the surname of Wang. Asian. Dark hair and eyes. In his early to mid-forties. You may find data entries on him working with government intel or space exploration."

:: On it. :: Brains' gruff voice assured her.

She made her way down to her designated 'office' in the mail room. Brazo hadn't been fibbing when he'd said that he was in desperate need of someone to fill the position. There were only two other clerks and both of them were a harried mess. She'd had a desk teeming with long-overdue work as soon as she'd come into the building that morning after only a few hours of rest.

She thrust the clutter off of her desk and onto the floor. She wouldn't be picking it up. She firmly believed that she now knew what it was that she had felt, why she felt compelled to come into this building. Answers founded, she would be quitting by the end of this afternoon.

 _Probably shouldn't put this on my resume_.

She emptied the envelope's contents onto the desk.

Images and dozens of sheets of data greeted her. Wang, whoever he was, had been fiddling with NASA's satellites for years. There were blackouts and disruptions galore. He'd provided her with files laying claim to hiding events on the moon since 1972.

 _What are you hiding?_

:: His name is Jerry Wang. Vice President of satellite R&D. Aerospace division. Mmmhmmm. :: Brains grumbled into his comm and subsequently her ear. :: On the fifth floor. Red. ::

"Hold tight, boys. I'm coming to get you in a few and we're going to N.E.S.T." She gathered up the files and tossed them into the compactor. The dirtied machine would take care of disposing of the evidence for her. She had no time to shred the papers as she would have otherwise. She didn't linger after striking the green button since there was an automatic stop in the base-machine's programing.

She was jogging for the upper levels, her tan trousers sliding against her suddenly sweat-slicked skin softly, when she felt it. Other employees gawked at her as she stuttered to a halt in the open hallway just before lunch hour. Her eyes widened. She reached out through the Allspark and felt the darkness of a withered bond. A Decepticon Spark…there was a Decepticon in Accuretta.

She'd only managed to take a few more jerky steps when the man she sought, Jerry Wang, fell past the window set before her.

"Shit," she mumbled as some men and women screamed and everyone clustered around the window. One person had the perversity to pull out his cellphone and start taking pictures of the indubitably broken body down below.

The attention wasn't long on Wang's body, however, as Brazo made his way across the green floor. The man was clearly disheveled. He bellowed out orders to call the police, for someone to check Wang's office, and for someone to start work on damage control. It wouldn't be good business for the company to have a dark mark in the papers.

Even Brazo's hurried exclamations couldn't hold a candle to the winged raptor that dropped through the ceiling to the floor on which they stood, however. The brief screams of before erupted into a maelstrom of chaos.

"Lazerbeak," the blonde growled out between clenched teeth.

The Decepticon was one of Soundwave's minicon minions just as Frenzy had belonged to Barricade. While not nearly as large and possessing a lesser sentience, minicons were capable of inhuman feats of power. This particular 'Con was a constant shape-changer. His preferred form, however, resembled that of a vulture with jagged armor and red optics. His tongue, a glossa, slithered from his beak like a snake's tongue scenting the air. His optics trained onto her. Glee trickled to her through that misshapen and decaying string that connected him to the Allspark.

She wouldn't reawaken it. Some beings deserved to be taken back into the Allspark's warmth and guided with hope to a brighter future…if there was one to be had.

…Some deserved to stay in the darkness they'd built around them.

"The Witwicky girl. Primus smiles on me." Lazerbeak's wings fluttered at his sides, the span of them well over seven feet. His spindly frame chittered as he shifted from clawed foot to clawed foot. "My Lord Megatron seeks you still, fleshling. Perhaps I shall bring you – in pieces."

"If you can catch me."

She darted away swiftly, the floor now cleared of other humans. Someone had hit the fire alarm scaring off the rest.

"Foolish, fleshbag." Lazerbeak flew after her, his solid body slamming through cubicles like so much rubbish as he went. "What did funny-Jerry tell you?"

Sam ducked behind a wall as Lazerbeak fired off caustic rounds. The acidic metal burned through the pressboard walls and floor. He chittered gaily, savoring the destruction he was raining down throughout the building. Personal pictures of employees' families melted, printed faces both dripping and flaming at once as they were ruined.

"Come out, girl. I can smell you." He clacked and hissed as he clambered over the sinking walls. His claws tapped a hypnotic rhythm against the metal supports. His head, perched on a long neck, ducked over the wall she took shelter behind. She glanced up through her lashes as his crimson-colored optics shuddered right before her face. "You smell _so_ delicious. Power radiates off of you."

"Have a taste," she spoke calmly, the deeper cadence of the Allspark leaching into her voice. She was rewarded with a bolt of surprise through that withered connection before she rose and swung an Allspark-power infused bat straight at Lazerbeak's helm.

Lazerbeak squawked as his body was catapulted into the next cubicle over and through. His frame got caught in the melting walls, the detritus sinking unerringly into his joints and around Energon lines. His next curse was one cried out in Cybertronian. She felt him fumble through his comm and connection with his Master. Soundwave would be coming for him.

"How 'bout some fried chicken, you bastard?"

The 'Con scrabbled on the ground, pinned to it as he was in the fallouts of his own labors. She hefted the bat back over her right shoulder, her fingers digging into the autographed metal – memoing to herself to send a thank-you card to Matt for the impromptu weapon. She funneled more energy into the bat. She poured enough of the Allspark's power into it to turn the metal a molten blue.

Her battle-cry could be heard ringing through the building as well as the bonds she shared with all of her 'Bots as she swung for the stars. She hoped Lazerbeak recorded it as well, relaying it to his Master. Let Soundwave know what he brought upon himself and his minicons by sending Lazerbeak into a public place full of innocent bystanders.

Lazerbeak's helm shattered from the impact, his screech choking off on an electronic whine. The Allspark's power shuddered through his frame like a visible live-wire. His struts and hydraulics sizzled and popped, armor bursting off of him reminiscent of popcorn frying in a pan. His whole body shuddered as the Allspark overcharged his spark and snuffed his existence out like the flame of a candle.

She fell to one knee in pain, recognizing the loss of one her own for what it was, but knowing that she had no other choice. It was she or him and in the end her continued existence meant more than his if only for the reason of her necessity to the Cybertronian race. She also could not let him kill more innocents.

:: _He may yet return to you, Child of Mankind._ :: That voice! It was the _Other_. His energy and power surrounded her. It filled her with a feeling of home and family. The Allspark responded in kind, rushing to embrace his essence in its own. :: _All Sparks may be redeemed…if that is their choice_. ::

The Other was gone as soon as he'd come and she felt a crushing void in her soul.

 _Will I ever understand this?_ She wondered privately to herself as she gathered to her feet and ran for the exit. The 'Bots, her bonds, were hailing her. They worried for her even as they pushed calm onto her.

She needed to get to N.E.S.T. before anything else could go wrong.

* * *

It was one Hell of a day for some jackass to back his Toyota Tundra into her bike.

After fuming for a good half an hour while she waited for the Accuretta security guy to take her statement and pictures, the bike pinned completely under the tailgate of the truck, she managed to hail a cab to the HHR building. She wanted to call one of the Autobots to come pick her up, but they had their servos full with Vector Prime's upcoming awakening and running their own brand of damage control over the whole incident inside of Accuretta.

So after she'd paid the hapless cab driver, who'd been made to take her all the way home to grab what he thought to be an RC Truck and Lenovo ThinkPad – _not_ what he had been expecting from a girl that looked as she did – and then back out to the outer edges of the city, she walked the two blocks extra up to the HHR building.

The guards were new.

And not anyone she had ever met before.

"Excuse me, ma'am. Can we direct you somewhere?"

"Inside," she harrumphed simply, cocking herself on her hip. She was still wearing her dirtied work clothes from earlier and she was sure she smelled something akin to burnt hair. She'd checked her braid and it hadn't been damaged anywhere, but she still smelled something _burnt_. She also hadn't switched out of her heeled boots and the D.C. sidewalk was unforgiving on her soles. In either hand she gripped Wheelie and Brains, still in their terrestrial disguises.

The blonde was in no mood for this absurdity.

"Ma'am," the younger of the guards put on a good show of being baffled by her ire. He tucked his weapon a little more behind his back as though to hide it. Futility at its best since the muzzle stuck up over his shoulder by several inches. "This is an abandoned building now. The current Health and Human Services Building is…"

"I know where _that_ building is, Private." Her eyes honed in on the marks of his army-issued jacket. There weren't many. He was a Private. Entry-level. "I am here at this one. You and I both know that I'm not here looking for Food Stamps or a job opportunity. Now, I've had a trying day and would appreciate it very much if you got on that bullhorn of yours and contacted Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox."

"There's no one here by that name, ma'am." The second man shook his head sadly. Was he trying to make her feel stupid? He looked sorry for her naiveté and uncomfortable for having to deal with it himself. "Would you like me to call a cab for you? We can have you taken anywhere."

"Inside," she repeated, her glossed lips thinned out. She was starting to get mad now. She felt the power within her, so recently utilized and scratching just under the surface of her skin, spike. Wheelie and Brains jolted in her hands from discomfort.

The men's eyes zeroed in on her cargo before reassessing her. Her power flared, the excess lighting in her eyes. The younger man took a cautious step back, the M4 slipping readily into his hands to square off against her chest.

"Ma'am," the polite vocal gesture slipped a little on the end, adding a question to the word. She smiled a little to see the nerves hit him where it counted most. Did he think she wasn't human now? Had he finally gotten a piece of the message that she'd just thrown down at his feet? "I need to ask you to leave the premises."

:: Somebody get their afts out to the front gates before I pin one of these glitches to the fence. :: The comm she sent in an aggravated burst that would reach any and all of the mechs she could feel inside. There was an anxious reply in the affirmative within a half of a second as the headache she'd sported since that morning bloomed into a full-blown migraine.

The nanites made her other than human. They allowed her to access the Allspark and become one with it. They changed her body on a molecular level and had given her the ability to access the comm-lines used by the Cybertronians in recent years, but the still-human parts of her suffered for it. The two guards blurred in her bad eye, almost going black, as the nanites diverted their restorative abilities to her brain.

"If we're in the habit of asking for things now, I'd ask that you get that M4 out of my face. You won't like what happens if you don't." Lights crackled around them as her power hiked up even higher. The entire outer perimeter, which had been dully illuminated by yellow light, flickered out entirely. The bulbs shattered in their casings, shards raining down around them. "I have had a hard day, gentlemen. You're making it harder."

"Energon readings, Sir," another man whom she had scantily noticed until that moment ran up to his comrades, his own weapon pointed at her with a purpose. The other two prepped themselves, military training honing in and setting them on-target. _She_ was the target.

"Put the guns down, please," she requested, slowly placing Wheelie and Brains onto the concrete. The two immediately shifted over into their bipedal forms and took up guard in front of her. They had their own weapons drawn, ones much smaller than the human soldiers', but infinitely more powerful.

"Decepticons!"

"I believe that's why I'm here, yes." She scrubbed her palm into her right eye agitatedly. It _hurt_.

"Down on your knees or we shoot!"

The three had no opportunity to follow through with their threat as Bumblebee hurdled over the walls in a single bound and gently kicked them out of the way. Of course gently for a Cybertronian could be equated to a linebacker tackling you at the ten-yard line at full speed. The men rode on their backs for several feet before careening into the chained part of the fence. Backup had come since she'd arrived, but the soldiers all stopped in their tracks at seeing she with Bumblebee fretting over tensed and the two 'Cons braced at her feet.

"Sam! Are you well?" 'Bee touched all along her sides with the softer pads of his digits. A less-invasive scan ran over her as he attempted to find any injuries on her. The tingling wave of their scans still made her shiver. "Why did you not have one of us retrieve you?"

She just glared at her Guardian.

"Who do I need to have a discussion with about putting personnel around my mechs that I have not approved of?" She peered over the servos he still ghosted over her, the sensors in his pads giving his processors even more feedback on her physical health, to glower at the three newcomers. Their expressions were shell-shocked as more familiar soldiers helped them to their feet.

"The humans came in with Director Mearing. They were delegated outside of the building due to the sensitive nature of our current…predicament." Bumblebee embraced her through the bond. He touched her sweetly. Love churned through them both. Unbidden, she found herself calming. The 'Cons echoed her calming stance by subspacing their cannons and blasters, but they still teemed with anger.

Lennox chose that moment to run out from the side entrance of the HHR building, his dark hair a knotted mess. He took in the scene before him with a trained eye and coughed. Loudly.

"I've had a trying day," she informed the man flatly. He poised himself, a soldier facing his superior officer. It wasn't a stance he commonly took with her, but any dimwitted fool could feel the pressure in the air. William Lennox was no dummy. "Let's go."

* * *

Ratchet should have been hovering over Vector Prime in the final minutes of standby before Optimus used the Matrix to 'revive' him from his long stasis. He should have been assisting the others in preparation for the likelihood of a rough awakening. The Atlax had left Cybertron under less than ideal conditions. There was a high probability of Vector coming out of stasis still thinking he was in the middle of a battle. All of the mechs present were to be in defensive positions to protect the few human personnel in the room as well as keep the big 'Bot contained.

Instead she could see him watching her intently. The chair she'd sat in the night before with Hunter had been brought to her. She leaned back into it heavily and held a cold compress to her forehead. Brains' servos were blunter than Wheelies, so the little 'Con had taken to massaging her soles after unceremoniously chucking her boots over the rail to the floor. She hoped no one tripped on them.

"Is your stomach still upset?" He inquired, his faceplates drawing closer to where she sat on one of the high-rises. His optics were evaluating her. He didn't scan her since Bumblebee had passed along the one he'd taken of her outside and was no doubt checking the readouts of her tattoo.

"Stomach flu, Ratchet. And I'm _fine_." She waved towards the girders the elder Prime had been laid onto. It reminded her of an elderly king that had fallen asleep on his thrown. The pillars were separated from him now, stashed away by Mearing into a reinforced titanium vault near the center of the base. The elder woman didn't want the Autobots to have the devices until she knew what they did regardless of the fact that they were indeed Cybertronian in nature and therefore did not belong in her human hands.

 _Prideful she-beast_.

"You should be more focused on him."

"Miss Witwicky is right." _Speak of the Devil and she shall appear. Meryl Streep has nothing on this Prada-wearing demon_. "He could very well be a security risk to this base of operations."

"Hold your tongue, Director Mearing," Optimus warned the woman darkly as she moved up beside where Sam lounged. The elder woman's manicured fingers, much like her own, curled over the top of her chair. She was taking up a strategic position. By being as close as she was to Sam she knew that there was less likelihood of being hurt, whether on purpose or by accident. She'd been a covert spy once upon a time, the blonde knew from Mearing's portfolio, and it was apparent that old habits die hard. "It is considered blasphemous to accuse a Prime of treachery."

"Did a Prime not betray his fellow Primes in order to end our world?" She received no answer except a dark stare from the 'Bots, but Sam silently patted the woman on the back for that realization. As exalted as the Primes were, they were not above reproach. She'd thought it herself and had said as much in earlier times, but learned teachings were difficult to turn a blind eye to. The Fallen was proof that the Primes were not Gods.

Optimus had the Matrix ready, pulled out from the thick casing of his Spark chamber beforehand. As far as she was aware she was the only human to have ever seen one of their Sparks. Even the others like Lennox and Epps had never been given the honor. The Autobots wouldn't make themselves vulnerable by allowing the human race to discover their weaknesses, that one in particular.

Eight years on Earth and they were still closed off.

When would they let someone else in?

"You're cleared for contact, Optimus," Lennox remarked as he was relayed his orders through his headset. He gave the thumbs-up to the other soldiers, signaling for the doors to be secured. It felt like they were securing the bulkhead doors in a ship to keep water from flooding in.

The Autobot leader looked to her last. The significance of that look stuttered her heart to a near-stop. They reached for each other in a way that no one else would be able to see. Their souls connected in a clash of light, his Spark to her heart, and intertwined. It wasn't like it was with the Other, but it was momentous in its own way. They gave to each other every heartfelt emotion that they could find within themselves, some unnamable yet real all the same.

She could read his thoughts through his whirling optics. He was remembering back to when he had almost lost his own Spark, spinning in that realm of nothingness as his frame tried to heal itself. He sorrowed over her short loss. Her death. When she came back and restored him she'd tied them together irrevocably. He was forever her ally. Her leader. Her friend. Her father. Her child.

Tears dotted her eyelids. She had to turn her face away and ease herself away from his connection just to maintain appearances for those around her.

Optimus hovered the Matrix over Vector Prime's chassis before pressing it downwards. The intricate swirl of metal and light sunk into the other Prime's chassis for the barest of seconds before Optimus pulled it free and away.

Vector Prime's resurrection was as rapid as Optimus' had been. The power from the Matrix rippled through him. His back arched thrusting his chassis skyward. His head tilted back while his servos dug deeply into the girders he'd been placed. He made no sound at first, but his oral cavity gaped wide in a silent scream.

In the next instant his optics flashed on, a blue like all the other Autobots, and he charged Optimus.

Optimus braced himself for impact with the larger mech, the Matrix drifting to her side through the air as he released it from his hold. It was drawn to the Allspark's power like a magnet as it had originally been formed from the Allspark. Her fingers reached out and gripped between the slats of metal, recalling the heat it emitted back in Egypt. She held it close to herself as the Autobot leader attempted to fend off Vector Prime's primal rage.

The others circled the duo slowly, their struts set in case the old mech made an abortive attempt to flee or they needed to dash in to protect their leader.

"Vector Prime," Optimus grunted as he took a ferocious blow to his helm and faceplates by the fist of his predecessor. His paint chipped and a piece of his lip-plate broke off, clanging down against the floor. He didn't swing back, merely held his ground against his fierce opponent. "It is I, Optimus Prime."

His voice didn't penetrate the fog clouding the elder's processors. The gauntlet on the back of Vector's forearm pulled away with several snicks, morphing into a weapon instead of armor. The sword was as long as his entire leg, Cybertronian glyphs emblazoned across the blade. He reared his arm back to strike while Optimus stood passively by. He wouldn't hurt a being that he most assuredly saw as his superior – one that didn't seem to know what he was currently doing – and the others would be too slow to prevent their Prime from being beheaded.

It was her turn to step into the fray.

"Vector Prime." It was just his designation spoken by a lowly human girl, but the voice she used to speak it in…

The older mech froze mid-swing. Literally froze. His frame caught in a time-loop of sorts as his name echoed in the cavernous, metal-lined room. Every human goggled at her. Brains had frozen in his foot massage as soon as the mech had been pulled from stasis, but his focus was riveted on her alone as soon as she spoke. He trembled at her feet. Wheelie had sunk to his knees, awe apparent.

When she allowed herself to let go of her restraints and push what she had become to the fore it changed how they treated her. She wasn't 'Sam' anymore. She wasn't their Sweetspark or their 'little one'. Whatever achievements she'd made as a human being, whatever lives she tried to touch, would be _nothing_ to them in comparison to the power she wielded. She hated letting go because she was afraid that one day she really would disappear in the shadow of the Allspark's glory.

She supposed that that in itself was a way to die…she would disappear into obscurity, not even worth a memory in someone's mind. That frightened her almost more than anything else.

Yet there were times such as this that the lives of others far outweighed her fears.

:: I bid you to let him go. :: Pain stabbed behind her eyes for the effort of comming him and her stomach churned worse. A sledgehammer being slammed against her skull might have caused her less pain.

:: What are you, Sparkling? :: Old. He sounded old. Older than Jetfire, though she didn't think that his timeline superseded the Decepticon Seeker's. He had been named in honor of one of the original thirteen Primes, but he was not one. His life had simply been harsh and aged him. It had beaten him down.

"Vector Prime," she spoke again, this time in her normal voice and outside of her own mind, "we're not here to hurt you. We're allies. We're friends. Please release Optimus."

"What was that all about?" Mearing whispered harshly to Lennox, having backpedaled away from her at some point. They all had. All except for Hunter, who'd been assigned to guard one of the doors. He had drawn nearer to her despite the intrinsic desire the others displayed to be farther away. His face spoke of genuine worry for her.

Vector Prime stared down at her seated – he knew it was her; knew knew knew – form before shaking himself free of whatever thoughts clogged his processor. He released Optimus slowly, keen optics surveying the only slightly smaller Prime.

"Do you know how you came to be here?" The current Prime questioned his elder.

"The Atlax…my ship was spinning out of control. We were in space for so long. We slid from wormhole to wormhole, one vortex through another. I locked myself in the vault with the pillars." Servos cradled red and blue shoulderplates. They squeezed. "I had thought never to see another of our kind again."

"You are safe here, Vector."

"Where is here? What is this language?"

"You are on Earth." Ratchet spoke up from behind the girders. His greenish-yellow paint made her eyes a little sore in the intense light of the room they were in when in accompaniment of her low-grade migraine. "You are speaking English, one of the predominant languages of the planet's indigenous homosapien species. I uploaded a datapac to your mainframe while you were in stasis. If you access the information you will be linked to the neuralnet for further inauguration."

Vector Prime did so in the span of several seconds. What would take a human hundreds of years to learn the Prime knew within three steady breaths. The accrued data of the Cybertronians, amalgamated and stored into a single datapac for all others, in addition to his enviable access to the internet ensured that he knew everything of human culture, religion, politics, and more.

His optics didn't so much as shutter.

"My ship was damaged," he continued on his previous conversational path.

"Non-functional." Optimus stepped away from the elder. "We reclaimed five pillars beside you in the vault."

"Five." Could an alien robot snort in derision? It sounded like it to her. "We once had hundreds."

"What do they do? What was this great technology that you all seem so fixated on?" Sam clenched her teeth on behalf of the Autobots and lamented that the human woman was the most incompetent competent dignitary that she had ever met. How could a woman that was so good at her job be so dense as to allow her solemnity to deaden her words? The lack of feeling made her appear to be talking down onto everyone and everything around her.

Vector eyed her coolly, not moved in the least by her bravado. It was reassuring to see that he wasn't inclined to respond violently, either. That could be a temporary lapse, however. The Allspark allowed her to understand some aspects of a specific mech or femme without the benefit of a bond and data/memory sharing, but it was not all-knowing. The Prime could spend his leisurely hours torturing helpless animals and she would not know.

"The pillars work together to make a gateway. The gateway would create a hole between time and space in which we could transport matter from one place to another. We call this a spacebridge. Only I am able to control it."

"Teleportation? That's what you're talking about, isn't it?"

"Indeed."

"With the pillars we would have been able to transport resources; refugees." Optimus placed his servo on Vector Prime's shoulder in a show of strength and unity. They were allied together in this in more ways than one.

"You mean to say soldiers!" Mearing gasped in affront. It was the most emotion Sam had ever seen from her. She would have bet top dollar before that very moment that even Bambi's mother being shot hadn't saddened her in the tinniest bit. "An easier way to move your armies from one location to another."

"I had left Cybertron to find a new home for our kind. The intention was to find a place suitable for us to live and rebuild our lives, free from this War." He stepped forward and the gantry shook. "You attempt to claim my invention. I demand it be returned."

"Gotta clear customs first." Snark was the word of the night, ladies and gentlemen. Had Sam been as large as either Prime she would have gladly paddled the woman on the gantry. It would have left an awful, goopy mess, but at times she thought it would be worth the cleanup. Ex-Liaison Galloway was the only other human on the top of her 'splatter list', though he never managed to work his way off said list with redeeming actions.

Charlotte Mearing generally sat on the list about eight-five percent of the time. Her good deeds and gentler persona, when she chose to show it, shimmied her off the remaining fifteen percent of the time.

"Is anyone else here embarrassed on behalf of the human race? Hmm?" She glanced around herself slowly, noting the disgruntled human faces. Wrong thing to say, apparently. Shrugging, she lifted up onto her feet, pitching forward in the next second at the shaft of pain sluicing through her abdomen. "Ugh, I need to eat something."

"Who are you, Sparkling?" _Who_ , not _what_ this time. She winced when she pulled herself up straight. Her brain felt caught in the pulse setting of a blender and she needed to eat something badly since she hadn't, now that she bothered to think about it, eaten anything since the saltine crackers from the night before.

"My name is Samantha. I'm a friend." She reached out for the Autobot via the Allspark. His line was there. It was muddied and lank. When she went to reach for it it recoiled from her touch. Shock assailed her. _That_ had never happened before. "Also Liaison for the Cybertronians on this world."

"I see." His servo stretched out to her and she quickly found herself snatched off of her own two feet and pulled closer to his chassis. She latched onto his digits tightly, surprised by the physical grab as she hadn't expected it with how he'd shied away from the Allspark's power reconnecting with him. "I will escort you to where you must go."

"Now wait just a minute…"

"He can't just go traipsing around…"

"Vector Prime, you must…"

Everyone began speaking at once. _Shouting_ was more like it. Mearing's cheeks were almost purple she was so flustered. Lennox was babbling into his headset in an attempt to explain what was happening to those in the control rooms and topside. The Autobots were gob smacked, at a loss of how to deny the recently come-back war hero.

Vector knew how to handle them.

He just kept walking.

* * *

Sam hummed lightly as she sat in the driver's seat of Vector Prime's alt. He'd assumed an alt quickly, not even bothering to scan a nearby vehicle and instead stealing blueprints from the internet of the mode of transport he preferred. He'd shifted around her, holding her in his servos, and folded down into the shape of a Rosenbauer Panther fire truck.

He'd buckled her in, just as the others always did, and took her for a sedate drive around the city.

They had an escort. She felt them trailing a respectful distance behind them, near enough to provide aid if required. Skids and Mudflap. She missed those two delinquents. She needed to set aside some time to play another round of PGR with them. It never failed to help them unwind and it cheered her up immensely to kick their afts in a digital racing game. There was an irony to it that tickled her pink.

"You are not human. Not completely." His voice startled her and she hopped in the seat. He deigned to chuckle at her expense.

"You're right. I'm not. The datapac Ratchet uploaded into you told you as much, I'm sure. The Allspark is imbued into me."

"Are you content with this?" That wasn't the question she'd expected. She thought about it for no more than a heartbeat before nodding in ascent. She would tell him what she told any others brave enough to ask. Truth, but omitting her greatest fear in that same truth.

"I am." She rubbed her hand over her chest where her heart lay protected underneath. "It's not always easy and I have to make sacrifices for the greater good, but that is a part of life. There's a credence that my family lives by; no sacrifice, no victory."

"How do you know what is the greater good? How do you know what is worth sacrificing, young one? Perhaps the ends do not justify the means." _Philosophical, aren't we, Vector?_

"I don't know. That's just it." She looked through his windshield to the stars beyond, which had just peeked through the night's sky as they exited N.E.S.T. "If we knew, we wouldn't be mortal. I don't think we're supposed to know. That's for God or Primus or whoever is up there to bandy around. We were given hearts, brains, and souls for a reason. We're meant to follow them in the best way that we know how. We have to be true to ourselves and our beliefs."

Silence greeted her for a few minutes. She leaned back in the wide seat, stroking her hands over the lower cushion. He still pulled away from her when she offered the connection and it unsettled her. Why would he do that? Was he just not ready for it? Was he afraid for some reason that he would not express?

"You are wise for one of your years."

She smirked, brushing aside his declination to bond with her for the time being. She would let him come to her in his own time if it was his choice to do so.

"I know you all think of me as a Sparkling, but I am actually a matured adult for my kind." She put on a one-sided smile, deciding to show some of her own snark. "I even pick out my own clothes now!"

"Indeed." Something light prodded her in the back followed by several more. They descended downward in quick succession and she found herself lunging into the seatbelt with a squeal of delight.

That tickled!

"Not fair!" She laughed, hitting her fist against his steering wheel in retaliation. The horn didn't sound off, thank God. He tickled her again, the jabs zeroing in on the spots that drew the biggest reaction out of her. Incidentally it was also the loudest reaction. "Ah-hah! Don't!"

"It is good to hear a Sparkling's laugh again." There was wistful joy in his tone. It touched her deeply and made her feel a twinge of pity for the mech. As far as she knew Bumblebee had been the last 'Sparkling' that had had the chance to grow into mechhood. There had been no others since.

"I know you don't know me, Vector Prime," she caressed his wheel with gentility, "but I hope that you will come to trust me. I only want for everyone's happiness."

"At the expense of your own?" Her stomach dropped to her toes to hear that question echo through the speakers all around her. He couldn't have known how close he was to hitting the nail on the head.

"No sacrifice, no victory," she whispered, laying herself back into the seat and tucking her hands between her legs. She didn't dare to touch him any longer. She detained herself. Whatever lightness that had been was gone now, a weighty melancholy having taken its place.

The old Prime did not attempt to rekindle the conversation. In point of fact, he didn't speak for the rest of their travels. It was around midnight that he dropped her off at her apartment, an agitated Bumblebee waiting in the garage with Wheelie and Brains underfoot. She watched his taillights disappear down the road, two familiar red and green shapes branching off to either side of the wide aft-end of the fire engine as sentinels.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, around the region in which her subconscious dwelled, she felt apprehension.

Something just wasn't right with Vector Prime.


	5. Chapter 5: Archive Retrieval

**Chapter Five: Archive Retrieval**

"This is your mate?"

Samantha slammed her hand against the window pane of her dreamscape, anger bubbling through her. Her hand was poised over the stilled form of probably her best friend in the world. He looked exceedingly handsome in his tuxedo, the tie a pastel pink color that did not detract from the masculinity of him. Six years had aged him a bit and defined several of his features. He could no longer lay claim to boyish good-looks. He was all grown up. Only his cheeky smile remained entirely the same.

"You are intruding on a private moment," she snapped to the being behind her, fighting to keep her back from tensing up. "Why are you even here?"

"It is you that intrudes upon me." Megatron strolled forward, his stride no less intimidating than when he'd stalked her in the foundry in New Jersey. His crimson gaze sharped on the image she'd locked into the window. "Three times you have pulled me into this place while I was unawares. I will have Flatline scan and assess my systems when he returns from his patrols."

"Ratchet told me that you all don't recharge that often so I can't imagine that you would have had a power nap the other night and decided to have another one tonight. What gives?"

"Power nap? There are times that the humans surprise me with their wit. An apt description." He waved a clawed servo through the air before him dismissively. "I was not in recharge. My systems locked down and while the medisects have been performing minor repairs I began to, as humans would call it, _meditate_ as I waited."

"You meditate?" Surprise colored her voice and her eyes widened. Then a peaceful smile ticked her lips upward, perhaps a little wistful, too. "I never would have thought you would do something so…serene."

"The trials of life were heavy on the shoulderplates long before this War began, little one. I endeavored to seek solace in any way that I could at times of great stress. Meditating helps me to achieve that succor if only for a few breems."

"I can understand that." The hand she didn't have rested against the plane she touched above her heart. She wasn't certain why she shared these personal moments with Megatron, of all beings, but deep down she felt that he wouldn't betray her. Of course Optimus had thought the same long ago before the Fallen's influence over him took hold. "I used to dance before I was introduced to Cybertronians. I was going to do it professionally, actually. Afterwards, though…I won't age after a certain amount of time has passed and I can't have a public face when that happens. Humans don't understand those kinds of things and they don't welcome it, either.

"I still dance in private, though. It lightens my heart to lose myself in the music. It makes me feel like nothing can touch me. Foolish thoughts, I know, but that's the way I feel."

"It is not foolish to enjoy the simpler pleasures that our existence has granted us." Megatron tapped a single claw against the frozen chest of the image before them. "I have seen this male with you before. Is he your mate?"

Sam sighed deeply, knowing that it was senseless to dodge the subject. She had become quite adept at ducking around projectiles lobbed her way, manmade and otherwise, but topics of conversation were best handled immediately. They tended to come back and bite a person in the ass if they didn't. Verbal boomerangs.

"No, he's not my mate. This is Mike, Michael Banes if you must be specific." She smiled warmly at the equally smiling man. "We're best friends. Well, we _were_ best friends. This was the last time I saw him. He's handsome, isn't he? I told him he'd knock'er dead."

"Knock'er dead?" Her voice repeated through his vocoder. She giggled, always amused to hear herself through any of them.

"An expression. The human language is riddled with them. It means she'd have her breath taken away, stunned into silence, pleasantly surprised. Take your pick, they all mean roughly the same thing." She willed the picture to widen outward. By doing so she revealed the rest of the image saved forever into her memories and showcased the woman at his side.

"He got married," she explained as she looked into the woman's eyes. She was a sweet-hearted and kind individual. She worked at a no-kill animal shelter in Montana. She stood no more than five-foot-four and was naturally petite. Her mahogany hair was done up into a pretty bun with loose tendrils framing her heart-shaped face. She wore an elegant mermaid dress with sequins running up the low back. The dress had been one of two presents she'd gifted to the couple two years ago when they'd gotten married.

Shelby was as pretty as she was gentle. She and Mike fit perfectly together.

"I haven't seen either of them since this day. Mike or Shelby'll send me an email every now and then to let me know how they are, but I try to keep my distance. Knowing that I'm not going to age and I'll be forced to watch everyone I've ever loved die before me…it's selfish, but I can't do that to myself. I'll be able to handle my parents because they would have passed on before me, barring unfortunate circumstances, anyway, but everyone else?" Her chest hurt just thinking about it.

"I don't really belong to any race anymore, y'know. I'm an anomaly. I can never fully belong to any one now. Maybe that revelation won't hurt me as much some day in the future, but for right now it's killing me on the inside."

Megatron didn't have any words of wisdom to give her as she had come to expect of him. She wouldn't know how he could say anything that she hadn't already thought about extensively. There wasn't much that anyone could say to make the situation 'okay'.

"I have a lot more people that I'm going to have to say goodbye to." Hunter's face bloomed in her mind's eye unbidden and she blinked away sudden tears. She hated saying goodbye.

She turned away from the window and instead faced Megatron. He was as stoic as ever, his frame locked into a state of perpetual readiness. She tried to imagine him meditating. What would he look like unguarded? It was difficult to picture.

"Are you real or just a figment of my imagination?" She stepped forward, her neck craning to keep eye-to-optic contact. "I've been here before with another mech and that wasn't my imagination. It stands to reason that you're real, too."

"I am as real as you, Pet." His head bowed towards his chassis to keep her in his field of vision as she drew closer.

"Don't call me Pet," she spoke reflexively. In truth she'd grown used to his endearment for her. She even welcomed it to some degree. If he spoke it with such softness it meant that she was less expendable. It gave her some leverage. "So, if you're really real…what are you planning? Lazerbeak was the one that killed Jerry Wang."

Megatron chuckled heartily, true delight ringing through his tone.

"You think me a fool, little one? You would have me speak of my war-mongering ways?" He shook his helm. "I tell you only, Samantha Jane Witwicky, that I act for the better of my race. I do as I must to guarantee the survival of my kind."

"We'll find out, Megatron, and when we do we'll stop you."

"You will try, Pet. Of that I have no doubt."

Her breath escaped her in a sharp gasp when his clawed servo lifted before her and the 'knuckle' of his thumb brushed her cheek. She stumbled backwards only to be caged in by claws that were suddenly corporeal.

Glee danced across her senses as Megatron held her bodily for the first time since the foundry. Her knees quaked with apprehension even as he plucked her up off of her feet to tuck her up against his chassis. One servo set under her dangling feet, tucking up until her hind end was seated on his palm with her legs curled up beside her, while the other cradled her oh-so-gently. Her hands shook as she pressed them against the warm plates over his Spark chamber.

"Ah, my little Pet. This is so much nicer, no? I have longed to hold you thus for years."

"Let me go, you rusted bastard." She beat her fists against him even knowing it was useless. He couldn't hurt her here – at least she hoped he couldn't – and the Allspark's power was useless in the same way. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. "Get your greased-up, slag-sucking son of a scrapheap servos off of me!"

"Ironhide has taught you such filthy language." He didn't question it, merely spoke the truth he knew. He tsked her. "You will be better behaved at my side, Pet. I demand eloquence, which I know you possess. It is a poorly-educated femme that feels she must verbalize herself thusly."

"I'll give you filthy!" She beat against him in righteous indignity, her lips spewing out every curse word she could think of, English or otherwise. When she had exhausted herself of that she leaned her forehead into his chassis, air panting through her lungs.

"Are you quite finished?"

"Argh!"

He chuckled earnestly at her ire.

"How did you know it was Ironhide? I would think you wouldn't know much of the Autobots' individual personalities being the leader of their opposing faction." She was attempting to regain her composure, something this mech seemed to be able to snap like a toothpick, and inane conversations would make it easier to do so.

The servo at her back thrummed, sending a decadently wonderful vibration through her spine. It was akin to being cuddled up into a message chair! He couldn't have possibly understood what he was doing for her, could he? If that were the case, he would have had to have studied human biology and social behaviors quite closely. She just couldn't picture him doing so.

"I have led the Decepticons from the very beginning, little one. There is much that I know of my brother's mechs and he of mine." She didn't miss that he had called Optimus his brother, not his rival or a more impersonal term. She also didn't verbally mention the slip. Did Cybertronians even misspeak? "His Weapon's Specialist is notorious throughout the known Universe as being as foul-vocaled as a Warble-Rat."

"Wassat?" She mumbled, becoming a bit sleepy with the heat and vibration he was emitting holding her so tenderly close. She might wonder later about feeling sleepy in a dream. That seemed like an oxymoron – or _she_ was the moron.

"A Warble-Rat is a meddlesome and tireless creature that once habited one of Cybertron's orbiting colonies. They burrow through ship hulls with their acidic denta and make pests of themselves. They are difficult to exterminate as they are a hardy bunch, much like Earth's cockroaches, and they multiply quickly being primarily organic in nature. Often once infestation has occurred a ship will echo with their high-pitched twittering for orns until the primary nest is found and removed. The sound would drive a lesser mech out of his processors if exposed for extended periods of time."

"Hmm," she hummed as she was rocked back and forth like a toddler. Her mind froze on the fact that Megatron had spoken so much, to a human no less, and not on the way her body betrayed her to the silver titan. The nanites had tweaked her brain waves in the very beginning to relate her to a Sparkling, as she was so much younger than them all, so her instinctive actions sometimes warred with her human adult sensibilities. She felt that way at that moment, relishing in Megatron's gentle hold while the adult part of her roared over the indignity of it all.

"You're very good at this, y'know." She patted his chestplates lightly now in stark contrast to the beating she'd given him before. "I'm trying to hate you and you're making it very hard to do so."

"You will never hate me again, Pet. You are mine." He said it as if that explained all. She was still baffled by his behavior. The only reason she could come up with was that, perhaps, the Allspark was affecting him in a similar manner that it affected her.

The dream tinged darkly around the edges and she knew she was waking back up. She couldn't resists rubbing her nose into the fine crack of his breastplates and smelling him. Warm metal, but not oily. He smelled kind of like the farther reaches of a lumber yard; woodsy, but also tinted with the smell of machinery and clean air. And ozone…they all had a hint of ozone to their scents. It was something their Sparks gave off if a person managed to get close enough to catch a whiff of the scent.

His thumb brushed the back of her head sweetly, trailing all the way down to the end of her excessively long braid. He was rumbling in contentment, an almost purr if she dared to call it that.

"It will be as this is for the rest of time, my little one. You shall see."

It was to those softly spoken words, reverence in them, that she woke in the sanctity of her own bed. Alone.

Her heart hurt for a reason she didn't want to understand.

* * *

Former Sector-Seven Agent Seymour Simmons buried his face further into his pillow, lamenting that he was not being permitted the sleep he so needed. He had a television crew coming to his mansion – yes, he had acquired himself a fine palatial home in Maine which his mother claimed the equally illustrious guest house after that hullabaloo in Egypt and his subsequent best-seller on said incident – to discuss his up-and-coming sitcom. He needed to keep his face as calm as he could. Added wrinkles were not what he needed to display to his many fans.

"Go away, Dutch," he ordered his manservant as he reset his cold-compress-eye-mask. It had begun to slip. Those damn baggies under his eyes were causing him no end of trouble lately. "I'm busy."

"Mister Simmons," Dutch, a polished German with a slightly effeminate air about him, greeted as he opened the curtains of his master suite unnecessarily. It was dark outside. "I have a caller on the phone that has expressed a dire interest in speaking with you." Dutch's words were formal while his accent remained thick. Seymour knew the other man had lived in America since his pre-teen years, being forty-three now, and so his accent should not have been so strong, but who was he to judge?

"Tell them to send me an email like all the other fans out there." He waved his manservant off, pulling his comforter up higher. It was amazing the finery one could afford once they'd written a best-seller based on the 'so-called' events the government hid pertaining to the 'film-shooting' in Egypt six years ago. The United States government had paid him and paid him well to hide the greater truth while still leaking select bits of information to the populace. He was a millionaire now and had free reign to 'tattle' to the public about the aliens that lived among them.

Of course it was the girl that orchestrated it all. It had been her idea in the first place. She wanted to stir the public into researching the aliens themselves. She wanted them to think deeper and reach farther than the safety of their own known little lives. An immediate reveal would have created unrest, but by bidding with higher-ups and muckity-mucks around the world she had been able to convince them to allow a slow introduction of the Transformers.

He merely reaped the generous financial benefits of being the one to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

"I do not think she would like being waylaid. She has called thrice already, Mister Simmons." He could hear a smile in the other man's voice. "Of course, if you insist, I can always tell Miss Witwicky to…"

"The girl!" He was instantly up and out of his bed, snatching at the Bluetooth he kept on the nightstand for just such important calls. "Hey Sam! How are you? Isn't it a little late to be calling? You still live in D.C., right?"

"Couldn't sleep." It was almost a relief to hear a familiar voice again, one completely in-the-know, and not just one of the endless rabble of pencil-pushers or conspiracy-whisperers he had come to deal with over the years. "Were you honestly thinking of having me write an email; one that you wouldn't even read, mind you?"

"Oh no. Why would I do that?" He scowled darkly at his still smirking manservant. He needed to rethink the man's pay-grade. It might need downsizing in the near future. "You're the woman who signs my checks after all."

"Not hardly," she snorted.

"Close enough," he responded with as much cheer as he could manage.

"You've been doing good with the press, Simmons. I have to say I'm proud of you Thanks for proving me right and everyone else wrong." He knew what she meant by that and so didn't bother asking. She'd stuck her neck out for him, guillotine at the ready, and he hadn't dared to let her or his wallet down. She was giving him a chance to keep doing what he loved and get paid for it without the added stress of having to sneak every bit of detail he had out of outdated and dilapidated archives. Whatever he needed was supplied readily to him so that he could sift through the files and carefully pass the knowledge onto the rest of the world.

At the rate they were going the Transformers were within ten-years of being safely outed to the human race. Well, as safe as an alien race can be on a planet not their own.

"I have to say, I don't miss the skulking around in filtration vents and hacking into those old databases. I've weaned myself off of the spying, preferring to enjoy the simpler things in life." As he said so he fingered the delicate bone china he'd imported from Shanghai, a rare collection piece that had cost him a pretty penny. Several pretty pennies. He never used it – didn't even drink tea – but it looked good sitting on the low onyx table in the sitting area of his suite.

"Oh? Shame."

"Shame?" His ears perked involuntarily. "What's a shame?"

"Nothing, really. I've just got a bit of trouble on my hands is all. I was looking for a man who could help me get some intel on some super-old, super-classified government missions. You were the first man on my roster, but I guess that I was mistaken."

"Classified you say?" If it were classified to Samantha Jane Witwicky, then it was certainly something that the older him would have dogged after relentlessly. That girl knew everything there was to know about the aliens! If she needed help getting ahold of some restricted information…

"Ah, no." He shook his head rapidly to dispel the wayward thoughts. He couldn't go back there. That life had nearly seen him smeared under a few gigantic robotic feet in the past, one of which had nearly rolled over him after he'd had the rail-gun fired off into Devastator's chest on the side of that pyramid. He did not need to go back to it. Therapy is what he needed.

 _Hello, I am Seymour Simmons and I have a snooping problem_.

He cleared his throat. "Not your guy anymore. I'm planning on riding this gravy-train right up to my tombstone in, let's say, fifty years. I've already got one made, you see. Gold-plating over jade. Very posh. Fabulous detailing."

"Pity."

The line went silent, but she did not hang up. Feeling caught mid-fall on a tight wire over treacherous waters, Simmons mumbled to himself. He paced the room cagily, his hands wringing at his sides. Dutch continued to watch him with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. What did he know? Was he in on the secret already?

No. No, he did not need to get involved. He was richer than Midas now…at least in his own mind he was. He wouldn't have any qualms about using any further details Sam chose to give him after the Decepticons and Autobots had their upcoming battle – she would call for nothing less than that – and the Autobots won – as they always did – but he was not going to risk his neck again. It had been a close shave before. He still felt the razor burn.

Unable to help himself, unable to brutally smother the desire to _know_ , he braced himself in the doorway to the bathroom and mumbled into the Bluetooth, "how classified are we talking here?" His body practically vibrated with need.

"First trip to the moon with a dash of crashed alien ship classified." He could hear her smirk now. "You're not interested, though, so I will just call…"

"Cancel my appointments for the week, Dutch, and have the jet readied," Simmons ordered the blonde German swiftly, already stripping as fast as his shaking hands could manage. He needed to make this the quickest shower of his life and haul his Jewish ass to the private air-strip half an hour away.

"So you're coming? Good, I'll make some cinnamon rolls and put on a pot. You like hazelnut?" The cheeriness to her tone barely filtered through his own niggling glee, doused with a bucket-full of 'what the Hell am I thinking?'.

He might be needing that headstone sooner rather than later.

* * *

It was encroaching on mid-day when Sam turned her attention more fully onto the man that had come into her home, dressed as though he were falling out of a Matrix film with a pocketful of cash. Simmons had done well for himself with his government stipend and lucrative success in the world of literature.

She'd been awake ever since her dream with – or of, she really wasn't sure still – Megaton and had come to the conclusion that she needed backup after unsuccessfully attempting to hack old NASA files on her own in the hours since waking. She could only channel so much Allspark power into the poor laptop before it either burned out or grew struts and walked away from her. Beyond that the files she sought were old enough to not be connected to any larger digital net and therefore impossible to reach from her own devices. The information she need was either hard-copy or, Heaven forbid, printed.

Wheelie and Brains had fretted over her after her fitful waking, insisting on doing everything they could to make 'normal' activities easier for her while she worked even as Bumblebee took the lift and watched her like a hawk. She could have been dissected and slid under a microscope and been less scrutinized.

She scrubbed her palms roughly across her face several times, exhausted in the aftermath of a night of little to no sleep and listening to the never-ending thrum of the Matrix of Leadership at her bedside. She hadn't been able to give it back to Optimus before Vector Prime had taken them both out of N.E.S.T.. It floated beside her no matter where she moved to. Its power, derived from the Allspark itself in its infancy, drew to hers. They were connected on a basic level.

"Did you get any sleep, kid?" Simmon's queried of her, leaning back in the ultra-plush wingback she'd salvaged from a second-hand store. He'd commented on her choice of living conditions, knowing she had her own money even if he didn't know how much, and advised her to pick a residence more befitting to her new station as he had. She didn't want grandeur, though. She wanted homey and eclectic. She liked her scavenged assortment of furniture and knickknacks. She even believed they looked very good together despite being pre-owned and 'damaged' to anyone else's way of thinking.

She was a simple girl. She was mostly immaterial and chose to live her life as such.

"A little," she conceded in turn, tucking her legs up underneath herself and shifting the blanket over her lap to disguise her discomfort. She'd thrown up in the morning sometime after waking and had had a low-grade fever for a short time. The two ex-Decepticon drones crowed about how she should just go see Ratchet and be done with it, but just like that it had been gone. Her stomach still ached a bit, yes, but the fever passed swiftly and she didn't have a repeat performance over the seat of the toilet.

She blessed the nanites for one of the first times in her so-far short life for making the stomach flu less awful. Lucinda, her thirty-year old fitness trainer neighbor, had been down and out with it for nearly two weeks. Undoubtedly the nanites, while prioritizing her sight, were lessening the degree of severity of the sickness for her.

She did not need to be wretchedly sick at a time like this.

"And I'm not a kid. Not anymore." Simmons snickered at her while his partner, Dutch, shook his head good-naturedly. She'd met the German man before, as she'd had to in order to ascertain his loyalties since he would be privy to the same in-the-know information that Simmons was privy to, but she hadn't ever had the chance to sit down and talk with him person-to-person. He was a bit quirky and played games for his own humor, but when it came to matters of business he was a tight-lipped, glaring SOB. She thought the two men made an excellent team.

"I'm old enough by far to be your daddy, so yes, you're still a kid to me." The ex-agent waved her off, dismissing the conversation. He fingered a binder and several loose sheets of paper he'd brought with him. He'd reopened his archives for the first time – his claim, not hers – since Egypt and dug out every bit of intel he had in relation to the space programs that he'd thought looked squirrely in years long-past. This included America, of course, and well beyond.

He had far less documentation that she'd hoped he would for being as avid a sleuth as he was.

"We don't really have much to go on." She fingered a South Korean flight log from the eighties. Not relevant to their current situation, but the abnormal readouts over the charted area and the image of a Chengdu J-7 with familiar glyphs tattooed up and down each wing was interesting nonetheless. She'd need to make time to look into Simmons' archives again. They'd checked up on the probable location of other Seekers after Egypt, but the search had been fruitless. Either they'd up and flown off, been 'decommissioned' by humans, or were so deep in hiding that they wouldn't be found ever again.

That was certainly one way to escape their War.

"Brains hacked back into Accuretta's logs. He traced Wang's employment further back." She took the papers the red-opticed hacker had printed out early that morning when she had woken up. Morning was a loose term for the hour in which she found herself unable to get back to sleep. Ungodly would have been better. "Wang worked with NASA on the launch of a Recon Orbiter several years ago. Going by the files he gave me, he was tampering with its mapping of the 'Dark Side'. Decepticon orders."

"He was expendable. Once they had gotten what they wanted, ba-doosh! Double-tap to the cerebellum." Simmons rapped a knuckle against his temple for affect. Sam shook her head slowly.

"More like a fifteen story drop from Accuretta Systems. Made it look like a suicide." Bumblebee, having been silent up until that point and continuing to be so, displayed a holographic image in between them all. It was a three-dimensional image of revolving screens. The two fully human individuals present in the room maintained an admirable dual appearance of stoicism, but she didn't think that they were entirely unaffected. No single person could be entirely unphased by their foreign refugees.

The screens Bumblebee displayed were collected obituaries and prior job details for American and more distant employs from variating space programs. All of the men and women had been highly intelligent individuals, some of them having flown into space several dozen times, and yet their deaths were oddly suspicious. All of them, all thirty-two of them, had died within a month of each other in various freak accidents. Wang was simply the most recent one and posed as a suicide.

"I see a pattern in the profiles." She gestured towards more than half of the profiles and 'Bee helpfully blinked the others out of existence so that they could focus more specifically on the ones she indicated. "Most of these people were Russian. I'm going to assume that means that the Russians had more of a foot in that door than anyone else."

"Looks like some are missing." Simmons squinted to read the finer print of their job files. "Either some of their coworkers haven't been whacked yet or they didn't know what the others did."

"I'm going with the first option." She reached over to the side-table beside her to snatch the mug of hot chocolate from its distressed surface. It didn't taste as good as it normally did due to her sickness, but it made her feel a little better to have something in her stomach. "We can try and track these people down before the 'Cons manage to kick them off the roster."

Brushing the blanket off of her lap, Samantha slid her feet onto the floor. The fibers of the rug brushed up between her toes. She padded across the rug and then the hard wood floor, shivering at the wood's cold surface touching against her warmed skin. She reached for her jean jacket.

"I'm going down the block for a minute. Will you call some of the others for me, 'Bee?" She tucked the zipper up halfway to her chin, brushing away the thought of donning her scarf. It was growing colder out with autumn encroaching, but it wasn't too chilly yet. She slid a pair of well-loved Sketchers onto her feet at the door. "I'd like us to have backup if we're going to try and find these men."

"Where are you going, Miss Witwicky?" Dutch was the one to ask her, his brows pitched downward as he looked after her pensively. She smiled faintly at him as well as her Guardian and pint-sized Protectors.

"Just down the street to the bakery. I need some fresh air and a cinnamon roll sounds good right about now. I'll be back soon."

Neither of the humans present spoke further as she slipped out of the door, though they did eye the cinnamon rolls she had made them all sitting on the kitchen island with quirked eyebrows. Bumblebee stayed where he sat beside the lift, the two 'Cons tottering around his shins and caps in agitation as they fought their desire to follow their Charge – their Allspark – and their dearest Sweetspark.

She needed a moment of time to gather herself and they wouldn't intrude.

The scout amped up his long-range sensors and tracked her more closely, but dutifully began to do as Samantha had bid.

* * *

Samantha stood as still as she could on the concrete poured at the feet of Joan of Arc. The woman sat astride a nameless horse, her sword returned to her hand after decades of being unarmed due to thieves just a few years prior. The irony was not lost on her that the woman had been rendered 'defenseless' for so many decades. She did not look down at her and instead pointed her oxidized bronze gaze towards the Heavens.

Sam had walked further away from home than she had intended, but whenever she needed to think and get away, she unerringly found herself walking towards Meridian Hill Park and the finely crafted statue that sat within its boundaries. The statue was in need of some attention by restorers, but there were statues in far better kept places in worse condition than she. Sam thought her world-warry and attractive for her imperfections. She looked _real_.

It was often a thought on her mind how Joan of Arc had done what she had. She'd fought for her king and his reign, had believed so deeply in her faith and the visions of her Saints that she had literally given her life for their will to be done. How was it that a mere mortal woman could have had such heart and bravery? She had to have been frightened, but she'd seen past that fear to do what she needed to in order to do as she was bid.

There were grown men with more to their names than a lowly peasant girl, more backing and power, and yet they achieved nothing in their lives. They did nothing. They made no marks on the world. They helped no one.

One little girl had stood against the world and persevered.

She flinched when she felt another burst of thought press against the mental shields she'd slammed up preventing the comms from being utilized in either direction. Somebot, and the niggling worry trailing down his line told her that it was Bumblebee, wanted her to talk to him. He wanted her to come back home. She hadn't told any of the 'Bots about how painful using the comm-lines were for her and so he kept pushing.

A mewl of displeasure slipped over her lips as the cooler air struck against her bared cheeks. It was a moderately cloudy day and so far the coldest day of the season. The wind whipped through the sweetgum trees, a high whistling sound touching against her eardrums. She shrunk a little more into her jacket as a shiver wracked through her frame.

Her abdomen clenched painfully.

Deciding that nothing could be done for it and that she'd been gone long enough, she prostrated herself in front of the unseeing and uncaring statue for a breath of time before straightening herself back out. A few others who had seen her acted put-off by her behavior, but did not speak such. They simply watched her go, an innocent child kindly asking his mother what the 'strange lady' was doing. He was the only one daring enough to verbalize his confusion. He was summarily shushed.

The walk home was leisurely at best, her mind elsewhere even as her soul reached out for those that she called her own. She promised them no miracles. She swore only to them what she could.

Her life was theirs for now and for beyond time.

Whatever she could do for them, she would.

 _Maybe that's why Joan of Arc succeeded where others failed? It was in her faith that she drew her strength. She fought for others and not for herself. Wars are won on the backs of heart-strong believers._


	6. Chapter 6: Choices We Make

**Chapter Six: Choices We Make**

"You're not serious, are you?" Samantha grumbled in disbelief, leaning up against Mirage's blazing crimson alt.

They'd stopped off outside of a ramshackle bait and tackle shop in St Michaels, Maryland. The alts of Mirage, Bumblebee, and Sideswipe would have stuck out even in the ritzier part of the city, but here they were especially notable. Here they were in a more sedate area, less crowded and with buildings unaltered for the sake of tourism. One was likely to see an Oldsmobile rumbling down the street heading for a custard at the local ice-cream parlor.

Simmons and Dutch were extracting various weapons from the trunk of Simmons's ostentatious Maybach. Overkill was a word she commonly used for Ironhide, not the ex-agent. Of course, his key adjectives tended to lean towards 'odd' and 'unabashedly spastic'.

"Deadly serious." The cocking of his rifle was unnecessary and equally overdone.

"I'm surrounded by morons," she mumbled to herself, dropping her head down into her hand. Mirage's side-view ticked against her hip in an improvised caress.

:: It will be okay, Dolcezza. :: Mirage's deeply accented voice thrummed through the altered Bluetooth she'd stuck into her ear before leaving home. It was far easier on her head to use the Cybertronian-made electronic than to attempt to access the comm-lines.

The blonde turned her eye to the shop. It was inconspicuous and not a place she would have imagined finding three USSR cosmonauts. She could have pictured a seedy bar in New York City or a casino on the Las Vegas strip, but not this building. Not this picturesque little place where the Cleaver's and the Cosby's could have been your neighbors.

Dutch held a pistol out for her, but she merely shook her head slowly. She didn't want a gun. Not at all.

"You're not facing the Decepticons, Sam," Simmons chided her severely. "These are humans. You know as well as I do that we shoot first and ask questions later. You can't work your hocus pocus on these guys like you would the Transformers."

"Cybertronians," she corrected out of habit. She grabbed the pistol, but maintained the safety as she tucked it in the rear waistband of her jeans. Like many other tricks she'd picked up in the presence of both the human military as well as the Autobot army, she had learned early on how to handle a gun. Her aim was remarkable and she didn't shake in the least. Hunter had seen her once when Epps had been giving her a lesson on ballistics while she'd been at the range and openly marveled at her uncanny way with weaponry. Her target, a hapless dummy that looked more scarecrow than person, had been filled to brimming with bullets from her clip. She'd honed in on the 'weak' spots and fired true.

Simmons nodded his head in approval before swinging his nose and himself towards the entrance of the shop. Dutch followed after his employer with she tailing them both. They'd stashed their weapons into the billowing black jackets they were wearing. Not for the first time she thought they were poorly imitating the actors from the Matrix films.

"Watch how it's done," he preened before them, knocking solidly against the wooden door. A sliding peephole opened with a snick, brown eyes nearing to black peering back at them through the slats. " _Dasvidania_ my good Sir."

" _Dasvidania_ is goodbye, _'suka_." The peephole closed with another snick.

Sam snorted behind her hand with great humor. Simmons glared at her balefully while Dutch continued to gaze at the door flatly.

"If you're so smart, what's hello in Russian? Those friends of yours couldn't have taught you that." The elder male threw his hands skyward in his ire. She smiled widely.

"Zdrah-stvooy." At the wide-eyed look he passed her she snorted again. "I didn't need the Cybertronians to teach me languages. I have my own little Rosetta Stone right here." She tapped her temple with her nail.

"Are you sure that's 'hello' and not just a sneeze? Sure sounds like a sneeze to me."

"Move," she ordered as she pushed herself to the head of their pack. She rolled her eyes under Simmons' stern glower. "You have no reason to poke fun at another language when you and your mother are always speaking Yiddish which is, without a doubt, gibberish."

Her own knock was less forceful, but the man who had responded before returned nevertheless. She grinned beatifically at him.

"Hello, Sir. We're here to see a few friends."

"You know no one here, _devushka_." His accent was even thicker than Dutch's was. His dark eyes looked her up and down cursorily. "I have not seen you before. You are new?"

"I'm not a prostitute." She waved the affronted gasps of her partners off. Apparently they hadn't thought the other man daring enough to assume such a thing. "Primarily I'm here to speak with Dimitri, Alexander, and Sasha. The matter at hand is quite urgent so I'll ask that you let us through swiftly."

"Peddle your wares somewhere else, ' _suka_."

" _Sir_ ," she hissed the title out between clenched teeth and allowed some of her power to leech up into her eyes. They burned and she knew that they glowed by the way the man's own eyes jerked away from the peephole. "I am no bitch and I am not stupid. I have come here on business with your patrons and I would appreciate it if you made this as easy as possible for me and my friends."

The peephole shut and for the briefest of moments Sam thought that they wouldn't be admitted and she'd have to ask Bumblebee to drive through the front door. It opened wide just as she was about to turn to her Guardian to instruct him to do so.

"You will not take us alive, _inoplanetyanin_." The dark-eyed man held a shotgun aloft, the barrel pointed at her skull. She didn't flinch, though she felt the bonds she shared with the mechs snap taut and burn with liquid fire. They didn't like that there was a highly dangerous weapon being brandished against her.

Simmons and Dutch froze in fumbling for their own guns when elder men with either bald or white-haired heads branched off from behind the doorman holding their own weapons. The three older men circled them as though they were the predators in this situation. Sam shook her head sadly at the absurdity of it all.

"We're the good guys." She held up her hands in 'surrender', releasing the power so that her eyes went back to their still abnormal lavender hue. "Perhaps we should take this inside?"

"Sam, they probably don't speak-," the ex-agent attempted to shush her only for the first and tallest of the elder men, who'd come to stand between they and the Autobots, gestured with his Glock towards the entrance.

"Yes. Get inside." Thicker accent. "We speak privately."

Samantha reassured the 'Bots as best she could through silent waves of peace and solidarity. She wouldn't let herself waver. If she allowed herself to grow timid or even frightened, the holoforms would fizzle into existence to remove her from the shop while their true forms dismantled both the establishment and the individuals inside of it.

The inside of the shop was derelict at best. It didn't look like a bait shop, but she hadn't really thought it would. There were a couple of poker tables, a billiards table, a beaten bar, darts, and several little tables scattered throughout the interior. It looked like the seedy bar she had pictured in her mind all along.

"Sit," the tallest man ordered. Sam sat slowly, raising a single brow at the imported Vodka perched before her. Deciding without really thinking about it that her low-grade migraine, stomach ache be damned, could use a little bit of numbing tonic, she snatched the bottle up and took a long swig.

Her whole face pinched and puckered at the burn that descended from first her cheeks, then her throat, before settling somewhere in the region of her stomach. Her teeth grit. That shit was worse than any rotgut she had had the displeasure of becoming vaguely acquainted with in college. She'd discovered even before she was legally able to drink that liquor had a handy ability to deaden some of her nerves including the ones in her brain. She didn't imbibe often, but when the Allspark power worked a number on her human body and she didn't want to beg Ratchet for a pain pill she'd slug back a couple sips of harder alcohol.

It worked wonders even if the aftereffects were miserable to deal with.

"Get that shotgun out of my face," Simmons growled as he took his own seat nearby, more forced into it than she had been hers. "Do you have any idea of who I am? Dutch, sick'em."

For all of his banality, Dutch was a formidable ex-assassin. He'd deviated from his government fairly soon after his employment and worked his way into a job that reaped heftier rewards. He was skilled in hand-to-hand combat, all sorts of weaponry, and couldn't be easily tortured into speaking. He'd been a POW for six years and that time had made him an even more adept killer.

At the taller man's command, Dutch thrust his hand under the barrel of the shotgun so that the piece aimed away from his employer. He then twisted it so that it slipped from the doorman's hands and into his own. The butt of the rifle was swung across the doorman's face, the wood cracking loudly against bone. The unfortunate male hit the floor like a ton of bricks even as Dutch chambered another round and aimed for the self-proclaimed leader of the elder Russian men.

The three men, bless their souls, didn't look too rattled.

"Oh for God's sake!" Sam slammed the Vodka bottle back onto the tabletop. The glasses on the slab tinkled. "Put the guns down. What is it with men and shooting things? You'd think generations of Wars would kill the mood at least a little bit. We're here for _peace_ , remember?"

The Swedish man looked at her with blandness before sighing in resignation. He pointed the barrel down, though he didn't hand it back to the doorman that was working his way back onto his feet.

"They do not look like 'good guys'." The lead man gestured behind her. Sam turned her head to see the tail end of two tiny blue afts and then felt the chair shuddering. Wheelie and Brains, never ones to be left behind, scrambled up over the backrest of the chair. Their servos clutched at her shoulders while their peds dug into the backrest.

"They defected to our side."

The two 'Cons proceeded to release a whole string of Russian, fluent and with all the right inflections. Everyone present, minus herself, gaped at the two. When all went silent, Brains was leaning his helm into the side of her face, the rounded edge of his optic rubbing against her cheek.

"What the Hell did he just say?" Simmons gestured with a jerking finger towards the two contentedly humming 'Cons.

"He say they show us best planets in Universe. Say Vodka nothing to some alcohol on – I have no word for this planet." The elder man met his eyes to hers. They were a very pretty green. "They say that they mean no harm unless we harm you. You just want to know what is on dark of moon, yes?"

"That's right." She held out her hand, pleasantly aware of the fact that her migraine had withered a good bit with the swig of Vodka she'd had. The feeling of lightness put a genuine smile on her face. "My name is Samantha. These two dumb-dumbs with me are Seymour Simmons and Dutch. Don't bother with his full name. He just goes by Dutch."

"Pleasure. I am Dimitri." Ah, so the tall man was indeed the senior officer for the moon missions of Russia. "My friends and colleagues, Alexander and Sasha."

The two other men nodded to her, one holding a stack of pictures and forms that he'd retrieved from a safe hidden behind a gaudy portrait of some political figurehead of foreign origins.

The man introduced himself as Sasha and began to spread the long-lost information out in front of her. She grabbed the Vodka bottle and carelessly tossed it onto a nearby table. It tipped over and then sloshed, the liquid within dripping off the tabletop to the floor. She didn't care as she surveyed first the printed files and then the pictures.

"Shit," she hissed, eyes narrowed on the array of photos before her. Her two human companions scurried to hover over her already occupied shoulders. She fanned the photos out. "I guess we know what happened to the other pillars."

Depicted in black and white were images of replica pillars either in the process of being dragged across the surface of the moon or already stacked neatly. The time-stamps showed that the images had been captured after Buzz Aldrin and his team had arrived to the moon first. Two photos she plucked up off of the table so that she could see the blurry images better. The image quality was very poor and she wasn't sure if she was seeing what she thought she was, but she was almost positive that there were Cybertronian bodies dragging dozens of pillars behind them on the moon's surface.

"America was first to send man to moon, but Russia send cameras first. First explorer see nothing. Years later next explorer see this. Rocks. Hundreds of rocks. Then went dark. Explorer and all after stop sending video and photo." He tapped at a file she had overlooked in her eagerness to discern if she was seeing a Cybertronian in a couple of the photos. "Our people find these clues before explorers go dark. Hack into systems and find this."

She skimmed through the ten-page file, each sheet a repeat of the one before, and felt her stomach flip-flop.

"That low-down dirty bastard," she mumbled in anger. The name Georgio Gould was emblazoned across each and every one of the pages. "That son-of-a-bitch has been working with them all this time."

"Who has?" Simmons grabbed the papers from her in an effort to see what she had.

"Dylan Gould took up where his father left off in their accounting and benefactor role." She tapped the papers from the backside. "They've been funneling their vast resources into hiding what has been happening up on the far side of the moon. The Decepticons have already gathered all of the other pillars. They were just biding their time while the Gould family kept them off our radar."

"But what were they waiting for?"

"Vector Prime." She stood quickly, bowing to the three men who had helped them. "He had the control pillar and four others. He was the only one capable of using the pillars and without Optimus to pull him from the vault and re-energize him there would be no use for the pillars."

"So they were just waiting for Vector Prime…but for what?"

"Doesn't matter at the moment. Come on. We have to find Vector and alert the others." She plucked Wheelie and Brains from her shoulders so that they didn't jostle against her while she jogged towards the idling Autobots. "Bumblebee; contact Mearing. We've got an incoming cluster-fuck and she needs to know."

She slid into the driver's seat of her Guardian as Dutch and Simmons hustled to match her swift pace into the Maybach.

She had a wayward Prime to locate.

* * *

"Not quite where I was expecting to find you, Vector." She groused less than an hour later.

Vector Prime sat on his fabricated wheels in his terrestrial form, overlooking a playground. There were only a handful of children left down there. The parents sat nearby on benches well within sight of their rambunctious prodigies. A couple of the mothers chatted excitedly while others sat quietly reading a book or playing on their phones. The lone father pushed his daughter on the swing set.

She rounded the firetruck so that she was at his front. She didn't face him and instead looked down the hill towards the laughing children. Their giggles and hoots of utter joy warmed her heart like nothing else could.

"The Sparklings lift my Spark." Vector's old voice responded as his bumper neared close enough to touch against her back. It didn't, though. He remained at a distance, emotionally and physically, and that more than anything unnerved her. All of the Autobots up until him had formed a bond with her amicably if not eagerly. Even the Decepticons, Jetfire, Astrotrain, Wheelie and Brains, and the now-deactivated Cyclonus, had readily accepted her inevitable connection to them once she'd reached out for them internally.

Vector Prime wanted nothing to do with her.

"It amazes me. They are so free here. There are no lines that separate them. There is no hate." She nodded her head along to each pronouncement in agreement. Such was how it had been from the beginning of human existence. Hatred was a learned trait. Children didn't see skin-tone or race. They didn't see through eyes clouded by avarice and distrust. Children saw only other children. Playmates and friends.

"There was an author some years ago that once wrote 'the love of children inspires an interest in the welfare of all humanity'. I take that to heart and hope that others do as well."

"A foolish hope, but so many aspirations are." There was a moment of silence. "You are here for a reason, I presume?"

"Turned off your comm lines?" The grunt she took as an affirmative. She sighed. "We have a bit of an issue on our hands involving your pillars and the Decepticons. I can inform you on the way, but we need to get back to the N.E.S.T. base in Washington as soon as possible."

They watched the children for a short time more, the silence between them not uncomfortable and interspersed with distant little-kid wails of delight. Sam was the first to turn and began to walk the short distance back to the parking lot on the other side of the park where the 'Bots and humans waited impatiently for her.

"Sparkling?" Sam hummed, turning her body to face back towards the brooding mech. "I am sorry."

"For what, Vector Prime?"

"I am sorry for the things that I cannot change."

She let a wistful smile touch her lips. "If they are things that you cannot change then there is nothing to be sorry for, Prime. It's the things that we know we have the ability to change for the better, but stand aside anyway, that we must atone for."

She didn't receive a response and she wasn't entirely sure that she expected one. Quietly, she walked back down the hill towards the others. The old Prime reversed and trailed after her just as soundlessly.

* * *

Sam rested her skull against the headrest of the sometimes-Camaro. The seat pulsed along her back, alternately massaging and radiating bursts of heat. Wheelie and Brains rode shotgun, animatedly talking between each other in their native language. It was an offshoot of Cybertronian, a kind of slang mixed with a subcultural variant that distinguished it from the 'main' language. It was like comparing Paris France's French to Quebec's Quebecois. It was fundamentally the same, but still different.

'Bee had contacted Mearing before they had even found Vector Prime. The woman was less than thrilled with their incoming entourage and semi-manic pronouncement of danger on the rise. They were on the highway leading back into the city. Bumblebee was in the lead with Vector Prime rolling up behind him. Mirage and Sideswipe tool rear flanking positions while Simmons and Dutch took the absolute rear in their Maybach. Vector Prime had turned his sirens on so people would move out of their way.

Sometimes it didn't work. There was a little old lady in a Jetta about fifteen miles back that they'd had to swerve around on both sides. She was either deaf or just didn't give two hind ends who or what was behind her.

"We have incoming." 'Side's voice resonated through the scout's speakers.

Sam didn't startle to see a holographic image pop up in front of her. It didn't matter that her vision was distorted since it wasn't she that was driving, anyway. Three lifted Suburbans, the type of black escorts the FBI often used, were barreling down the highway towards them at high speeds. Their own lights flashed, but they weren't waiting for people to move. They were just dodging the other vehicles like so many traffic cones.

And they weren't human.

She had felt them approaching through the Allspark's well of power. It was like feeling a thunderstorm coming, the fine hairs on the skin raising as ozone spiked and the air charged. Her awareness of them was an inky battering-ram against the wall of already formed bonds tied together in a spectacular wall of color. There was another wall of loose strands, connections the Allspark had once claimed, but were withered and so far out of her reach that she let them be. On occasion, like what these three were doing by charging her, they drew close enough that she could feel them.

If given the right incentive, she could bond them.

The three Suburbans, Hatchet – not to be confused with her friendly 'endearment' for Ratchet – Crankcase, and Crowbar, drew up on the Maybach first. Hatchet shifted over mid-leap, a flash of dark metal, and landed on the hood of Simmons' car. He tore the roof off as though it were tissue paper. He'd reached in and grabbed the ex-agent just as Mirage and Sideswipe fell back to engage.

Sideswipe changed over into his bipedal form, his wheeled-peds rolling with nearly as much speed as they had been in alternate form. He'd slowed himself only enough so that he could body slam himself into the bulkily formed Dread. Hatchet was as sentient as his team brothers, but he was also the Hunter of the group and his hunched, quadrupedal form leant to the appearance of some sort of canine predator.

The three, Simmons more along for the ride than a part of the scuffle, found himself tossed bodily from the 'Con's clawed servos. He rolled and rolled, his arms covering his face, until he crashed into the median. Sam winced to see it before whatever camera imaging 'Bee utilized to make seeing the altercation possible in the holo fizzled out of range.

Sideswipe wouldn't let Simmons or Dutch die if he could at all prevent it. He'd offline the Dread before he could do any more damage than he'd already done. The disappearance of Hatchet's decayed connection barely half a minute later verified that thought.

"Pull ahead of us, Vector Prime," Sam commanded in her sternest, non-Allspark tinged voice. The senior 'Bot didn't argue, didn't even put up a token protest. His engine revved, a vicious sounding boom of power, before he put on a burst of speed. 'Bee swerved out of the way as the old Prime took lead position.

Mirage's exterior broke apart as the two remain Dreads attempted to overtake him. Panels slicked aside and armaments peeled outwards. There was a burst of light which she saw through the rear-view window as the red 'Bot unleashed an unholy rage on the two 'Cons. Plasma and percussion blasts rocked the two Chevys when those strikes rang true. Asphalt crumbled and erupted around the trio. By now they had no human bystanders following, the road too badly destroyed for a normal vehicle to pick its way through the mayhem. The vehicles they were passing at high speeds had slowed to complete stops, hugging tight to the medians. Whereas the flashing lights of marked vehicles hadn't slowed them as they should have, no one was fool enough to miss the battle pulling up on their asses.

The blonde thought blithely that there would be no disguising the Cybertronians on Earth any longer. The gradual introduction of their race was flung out the proverbial window with this nightmare.

One of the Dreads, Crowbar, had had enough of Mirage. He went on the offensive and leapt onto the Ferrari. The seamless way in which they all transformed their bodies was astounding even at times like this. The two dueling combatants, Mirage switching himself over underneath the larger mech, fell behind. The distraction allowed Crankcase his opportunity to take out Vector Prime's last line of defense.

She and Bumblebee.

"Screw this," Sam mumbled to herself. She smacked the side of her fist against 'Bee's driver's side window. There was a startled sort of inquiry through their bond. "Open the window, 'Bee, and keep your aft moving."

"Sam!" Wheelie had latched himself to her leg as she lifted into a crouching position, head ducked with so little space in the interior, and was looking up at her with distressed crimson optics. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Fixing this and finding out what the Hell is going on." When Bumblebee didn't open the window, no doubt unwilling to let her put herself in harm's way even more than she already was sitting in his alt mode, she closed her eyes and concentrated. A wail of anguish and a twinge of pain erupted in the Camaro as she used her power to force the issue. The window opened, slowly and with the pane visibly shuddering with the scout's futile attempts to stop the actions of his own frame.

Wind blasted in and onto her face. The remaining Dread was getting progressively closer and had taken to firing off caustic rounds. 'Bee swerved, but less jerkily than before. He knew what she was about to do and with her control over his body, he had no choice but to aid her in one of the only ways left to him.

"Get back into the scout, Sparkling!" Vector's half-worried, rasping cry carried back to her as she stuck the upper half of her body out the window. Her eyes glowed as she ignored him and the others, putting the entirety of her focus on climbing 'safely' onto the hood and using raw Allspark energy as a kind of shield against the missiles hurtling their way. It was like setting a force field up around them. The missiles struck the energy wall and imploded, the brutal force of each shot compounding into a single ball of heat and light before snuffing out. The sight was reminiscent of blowing out a candle.

Sam eased herself onto the roof, anchoring her feet through open windows. She crawled towards the back, gritting her teeth when the mech beneath her moved more jerkily than he'd intended to. She slid onto his tail end, her eyes zeroing in on the Suburban. He was no more than fifteen feet from where she clung for dear life.

"Come here, you bastard," she hissed, pushing through the barrier she'd formed around them. She felt his line and saw it clearly. Though in times past she couldn't bond with a Decepticon without physical touch, just as she hadn't been able to bond with the Autobots once upon a time, the years had given her more prowess. Where once she could have been two different forces, she and the Allspark could be distinguished as two – not one, there was no separating them now. They were One.

She hadn't forced Vector Prime, but she could have. She could have made him bond with her. She could have ripped through any and all of his defenses and drawn him into herself. It was above her to stoop so low, though. She wouldn't under good conscience take a being's choice away.

The Dread wasn't getting the 'play nice' Samantha.

She grabbed at his line with both fists and funneled everything into it. She washed all of her feelings and memories into it as she yanked him inwardly and bodily towards her. He hadn't been able to resist and his own awareness funneled into her. He was shocked and awed. He felt immense elation and triumph.

He was finally hers! The exhalation had been from him and not herself.

His memories of his earlier life touched against her mind's eye. He had no siblings. He had been in a position equal to a lawyer before the Wars. He was a brilliant mind and beneath everything he had a truly kind heart. She saw him enter into the Decepticon faction after watching his intended Sparkmate slaughtered – accidentally – by an Autobot before him. She felt his remembered resentment for the Autobot faction for having destroyed his true love. She shared his memories of all those thrice-damned battles across the cosmos.

Then it was what she'd hoped for. His latest memory and mission flashed up to her. Megatron had sent him and the other two Dreads out to retrieve Vector Prime. They weren't to attempt to injure him even they could manage such a feat. They were to bring him back to the Decepticon leader for…

Sam choked on a scream of agony as Vector Prime backflipped over them, the 'sword' that had been latched onto the back of his alt and bipedal form brandished, slicing through the Dread. The titan of metal sliced Crankcase into two, his Spark sputtering out as that, too, was split right down the middle. The bond whiplashed out of her, barbed ends tearing bleeding, gaping holes into her soul. Tears cascaded down her cheeks to feel the connection so brutally ripped from her.

It was like Cyclonus all over again.

Her face struck Bumblebee's tail as he thundered up to the N.E.S.T. base. She hadn't been aware that they'd gotten that close. Her chest heaved on sobs at the empty space Crankcase's death left in her. No matter how new or if the bond was forced, once she admitted one of the Cybertronians into her soul they were fixed there as though they had always been.

"Sam! Fuck, what the hell is going on?!" Hunter was running out of the building up to her. His blue eyes were panicked. All of the 'Bots were already outside, having been kept up to speed by the ones accompanying her and felt her through their own bonds. Other human soldiers were slower in coming.

"Y-you killed him!" She accused the old Prime, her shaking hand clutching at her heart through her chest. Hunter helped her off of Bumblebee's tail, supporting her whole weight against his. She jabbed a finger towards Vector's stoic form. "Why did you kill him?! He was _mine_!"

"There are things that we cannot change." He intoned. "He would have attempted to change something he could not."

"What are you talking about?" Hunter was glaring up at the titan, oblivious or uncaring of the fact that he was nothing but an infinitesimal mouse comparatively. His jaw was set above her. "Look at what you did to her! If nothing else you should have been looking out for her and trusted her judgement."

"You do not see, young human. We were never going to win this war. A deal had to be struck." A weapon was pulled from subspace, one she had never seen before, and turned it onto the gobsmacked Autobots. None of them were quick enough to move out of the way in time and the disastrous first shot hit Skids right in his chest plates.

Sam thought she felt it before he did.

The cannon Vector Prime had used was another one of his inventions. A one of a kind. It was, essentially, fast-acting rust. It utilized every agent known and unknown to mankind and concentrated to such a degree that as soon as it struck anything metal it began to eat away at it. It wasn't a slow process. Had an oil tanker been struck by a single shot from the weapon, it would have deteriorated to particles the size of fine grains of sand in no more than two minutes. All of this information the Allspark supplied to her in cold, hard fact.

Her heart felt rendered to pieces as Skids' chassis crumpled into itself as the rust ate away at him. His Spark didn't stand a prayer of a chance at avoiding its disastrous fate. The green mech had no time to say anything; not even 'goodbye'.

Mudflap watched helplessly as his brother, the twin that shared a piece of his Spark, die so silently and swiftly beside him. Samantha felt the pain of losing another bond, this one so much stronger and important in its own way because she _knew_ Skids, as the green mech died. She crashed down to her knees, the skin scraping even through her jeans. Vomit threatened as blinding pain ricocheted through every crevice of her body, blooming outward from the depths of her heart.

"N-no." She cried out as Hunter attempted to hold her body together. She was convinced that it would crumble to pieces if he hadn't seized her so firmly. What was worse was that she knew that in moments Mudflap would be gone, too, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Absolutely nothing.

"Retreat! He's with the Decepticons!" Lennox shouted, bounding off with human soldiers in tow. The Autobots dispersed nearly as quickly, the reverence they once held for the 'retired' commanding officer snuffed out alongside Skids' life-force. Through the Bluetooth in her ear they told her to run, that they would not leave until she was safely away. She barely heard them through the blood rushing through her ears. Barely aware of Bumblebee rushing off with the two mini-'Cons shouting obscenities from his interior.

When Vector might have pursued or even turned his foul weapon onto them, Mudflap fully lost himself to his Spark-deep grief. The scream of denial and pain that tore from his vocal processor morphed into a war-cry that shook the very walls around them in the courtyard. Mudflap leapt for the much larger Cybertronian, his optics obsidian with primal rage. His smaller frame latched onto the Prime's back like a monkey clinging to its mother...or a lion clawing into the hind quarters of a wildebeest.

"Come on, Sammy. We have to go." Hunter didn't wait for her to answer or to allow her to stand on her own. He hoisted her up into his strong arms, tucking her body up close to his chest.

She was sobbing by that point, actually digging her fingers into the skin of her left breast over her heart. Her cries were echoed by Mudflap's until he, too, went eerily silent. An instant later his bond wrenched away from her. Echoes. Raging infernos in the blank spaces of her soul where they had been echoed endlessly. A horrendous loop of seemingly unending hurt.

"Unlock my pillars, child of mankind." Vector Prime's voice echoed all around as he trailed after Hunter, his most recent betrayal not weighing upon him at all. She could feel that much beyond the pain. He didn't care.

"That son-of-a-bitch." Hunter clutched her tighter, not bothering to attempt to peek his head around the shipping container they had ducked behind. "How could he do that?"

She had no response to give him. None whatsoever. Her body shook beyond her limited control. She blocked the others out simply because this pain had the capability of either destroying them, too, or bringing them down upon Vector's helm. In essence that, too, would lead to their ends as the old Prime was very much their superior.

Hunter turned with her still in his arms, aiming to run the opposite way of the direction in which they both heard Vector move. Had she had all of her facilities intact she could have warned him. She _would_ have warned him. Cybertronians did not falter. They made no move or sound that was not with a purpose. Hunter knew that, too, but he was narrowly as out of sorts as she.

A splatter-round, a comparatively sedate weapon of Cybertronian design meant to kill vermin on their ships while causing little to no damage to the hulls, stuck the soldier across his back. His breath whooshed from him in a choked gasp. He tumbled to the Earth, barely managing to thrust her away from his falling body so as to spare her his hefty weight.

Sam gaped at him with widened eyes. Agony stretched across his face. He wore it like a mask, the normally handsome and friendly countenance buried under the strain of his injuries. Behind him from a hundred-or-so feet away Vector stood as tall as ever. He was not smug. He bore an air of insipid acceptance. He'd felt it his duty to fell the human that blocked him from one of the only beings able to grant him unfettered access to the five remaining pillars. What was a few lives in exchange for the race he thought he was saving?

Of course, how was he to know that he had hurt possibly the only human being in the entire Universe in which she found herself unerringly and unremorsefully bound to?

The tumultuous grief she felt didn't go away, but a newer, fresher rage ignited in her belly. She'd claimed Hunter in a way that she knew she shouldn't have and couldn't rightfully. She would outlive him many times over. She could not give him the family that he deserved. She was not good enough for him. However, he _was_ the man she desired, the man she cared for and felt a soul-deep connection to. From the very beginning they had been destined to be together. He was as much hers as if he had been born to belong to her and she, in turn, belonged to him.

And Vector Prime had gravely wounded him.

"You will die for this," the Allspark thundered through her, her voice subsonic and ultra-imposed at the same time. The air charged and wind swirled around them both. Vector Prime's blue optics shone with surprise over what he knew was coming, though he shouldn't have been. He knew what she was.

Sam reached her hands out and set them onto Hunter's shoulders, blood from his mortal wounds staining her skin. The sticky, wet feel of it fueled her ire even more. The sentient, robotic fool had harmed her man!

"You had a choice, Vector Prime, and you chose _wrong_!"

Samantha pulled Hunter through the warp with her, her lavender eyes blazing like a solar flare. The last sight she glimpsed before cracking through time and space was the Prime heedlessly walking away and towards the approaching convoy of Suburbans.

Charlotte Mearing had picked one Hell of a time to be late.


	7. Chapter 7: Ebbing Tide

**Chapter Seven: Ebbing Tide**

As soon as they'd pulled through that space of total nothingness, the void that one was forced to swing through when they initiated a warp, Sam tumbled away from Hunter as quickly as she was able.

Her stomach heaved.

The blonde's whole body shook heavily as she threw up on the main deck of the Ark. She didn't have much of anything in her stomach to be rid of, so for the most part she dry-heaved. She couldn't stop it. Her guts clenched and just _hurt_. Her head spun, threatening to tip her over into her own mess.

She willed herself to stop and then move. Hunter lay motionless on the metal flooring, blood dripping from the nightmarish wounds on his back to pool beneath him. She had to help him. She had to save him.

In her mind she pictured Ratchet. She felt him through their shared bond. She used that connection to catapult herself through the warp one more time. When she emerged, Hunter and the Ark was gone and in its stead she stood in the middle of one of the major intersections of Washington, D.C.. Cars screeched and swerved as she popped right out of thin air and into their direct paths. That was one of the downsides to Warping without a destination in mind. A person could find themselves in any dangerous situation, be that a busy highway or fire-fight.

Sam braced her body as the H2 Rescue Hummer, which had been barreling towards her, shifted over into his bipedal form. He reconfigured his servos and from his 'knees' to his peds into jagged shafts of metal. It was the same principle as studding your tires for winter. Asphalt tore underneath of him as he skidded to a halt before and over her. Had he had a human's respiratory system he would have been panting above her.

"Sam! What are you-" Ratchet attempted to question, but she cut him off.

"No time." She didn't even blink as she sucked him into the warp with her. The medic vented, loudly, when they emerged in the Ark together a few feet from Hunter's bleeding form. His helm rotated as he peered around them.

"Why are we at the Ark?"

"It's the only safe place to hide right now." She hurried around Ratchet to hover over Hunter. His breathing was worse. Tears dotted her eyelids. "Please, Ratchet. Help him."

"Sweetspark," Ratchet's holoform fizzled into existence, touching the man that she was irresistibly drawn to. His regret was clear when he continued to speak. "He is not like you. He is entirely human. These wounds…he will not survive this, Samantha."

"Can you extract some of my nanites?" Surprise rang through their bond. His holo's brown eyes widened considerably. She slid her legs under Hunter's head so that his cheek could pillow on her thigh. Her hands trembled over the few places on his back that had avoided damage. "They're old. You told me before that that's why they were able to work with anything other than Cybertronian. Is it possible to extract some from me and inject them into Hunter?"

The medic looked down at her, both his holo and his true form, before assessing the human soldier. She could feel the residual of the scans he ran over Hunter tingle into her legs. There was a wealth of apprehension and worry evident between them. Ratchet wouldn't lie to her if he thought what she asked was possible, but neither would he let her do something that would be detrimental to her.

No matter what happened, her safety was paramount to everything else.

The silence stretched for longer than Sam thought was entirely safe for Hunter. If they had any chance of saving the soldier, they had to move quickly. His breathing was coming out slower now. It was raspy, even, which brought her to the conclusion that his lungs were pierced.

"Ratchet?" She urged him plaintively. The holo's eyes surveyed her sadly.

"You cannot keep him, Sweetspark." That statement caused her heart to lurch in a way not too dissimilar to when she thought of one of her mechs offlining. It wasn't the same, but it was similar. Her whole heart ached and screamed for the loss of the fraternal twins by that Pit-Spawned betrayer Vector Prime and there wasn't anything that could overshadow that forfeiture, but in this she could do something.

"I know." The tears were in her voice as well as on her cheeks. She brushed a finger over Hunter's slickened hair. "I know that."

She did, too. He was human. He always would be. He wasn't like her, touched by something otherworldly and imbued by a power that granted her near immortality. Even if she supplied him with the nanites they couldn't be repurposed like hers had been when she'd become the Allspark's conduit. The nanites had the potential to heal him and make him better, but they wouldn't make him like her. She wouldn't do that to him, either. No one deserved to suffer the same fate as she.

She couldn't have him. She couldn't 'keep him' as Ratchet had said. That didn't change the fact that she felt connected to him. She felt the need to help him and bring him back to health. She couldn't let him die this way.

Ratchet vented deeply.

"It is not guaranteed to work, but I will need Jolt's help." His true form's optics flared as he used his comms. "Jetfire will bring him. Please, Sweetspark, lie down for this. I am afraid this cannot be done without some discomfort on your part."

"Thank you," she whispered, laying back onto the ground with Hunter's head still cradled on her lap. She ran her fingers through his hair slowly. Her ears she kept trained to his wheezing breaths as the Autobot medic did what he could to keep the human male from dying before they could do what they had to do.

Her eyes she trained onto the low-grade illuminated ceiling. The ceilings had a low-grade blue glow, the continuous panel offering the non-aggressive lighting that illuminated the entire ship. The Ark had been landed and hidden on Earth by the Autobots, with her backing, three years prior. There were always going to be things, unfortunately, that the humans didn't need to know about. Even the more trusted of the N.E.S.T. team like William Lennox and Robert Epps. The Ark was the one true escape for the Autobots that they could utilize if Earth decided to be rid of their alien allies.

Or in cases like this, it was where they could hide without prying eyes finding them.

Jolt stumbled, a fright for those smaller than he, as the ex-Decepticon Seeker pulled them both through the warp. While the old mech was able to use the early-model – i.e. _obsolete_ – transpatial technology and had come a long way from his first 'trip' back in Egypt after centuries of non-use, it was far less smooth than her own warps.

"What in the frag is going on?!" Jolt turned his accusatory optics onto his senior officer once he'd regained his stabilizers. Jetfire set a servo onto the smaller mech's shoulderplate for support.

"Samantha, what are you doing with Hunter Mason?" At the black mech's words, Jolt reset his attention onto where she lay with Hunter. Tears blurred her vision of them all.

"We need your help, Jolt. Please." Her voice cracked.

"Oh, Sparkling," the younger medic cooed, his Spark hurting for her pain. He could, undoubtedly, feel her keen sense of loss whenever she unconsciously attempted to reach out through the lines that were now cold and lifeless that had connected her to Skids and Mudflap. He would also feel her echoing dread revolving around the possible loss of the human soldier if they didn't hurry.

"Close your eyes, Samantha," Ratchet ordered her softly. She did so, breathing deeply to keep herself from hyperventilating. She felt several distinct pricks against her skin, one at the soft spot just below the lower curve of her ear on either side of her neck and a few others over her chest when Ratchet's holoform pulled the fabric of her blouse back to access her skin.

"I am connecting what you might call a transfusion line. With a continuous, low-voltage influx and a few specified codes, I can draw enough of your nanites from your body and funnel them into the male's major arteries to enhance his healing." It was quiet for a moment. "The nanites have multiplied since your fusion with the Allspark. The new nanites would have evolved to work with your anatomy and yours alone, but the older and more outdated nanites will be siphonable and will not affect your own systems unduly."

"How bad is the charge going to be?" She wasn't timid in asking. Physical pain was far more tolerable and easier to cope with in comparison to emotional upheaval.

"It should feel...an apt comparison would be to a retrograde sunburn over the expanse of your exposed flesh."

"So it'll burn? Hmm." A smile ticked up the corner of her lips. It was wistful at best. "I've had sunstroke before. I think I can deal. Will it feel the same for Hunter?"

"His pain will be worse until the nanites lock into his bloodstream and release a mild anesthetic. That will not take more than several breaths of time to happen."

Sam readied herself, still brushing her fingers through Hunter's hair. He was deteriorating fast. She could hear it in the wet rattle to his breathing.

"Jolt, ready your arcs. Try not to tense up, Sweetspark. This should not take long." Ratchet's rasping timbre brushed against her. She nodded once. "Begin charge."

The fine hairs on her arms rose with the charge that rent the air. Her body shivered. Heat emanated from the points of pain where, presumably, Ratchet had plugged the transfusion lines under her skin. The first wave of electricity had her reflexively pulling her hands away from Hunter's body so that she didn't end up curling her nails into his skin. She felt her teeth clack together at the sear that burned over the expanse of her neck and chest.

"Frick, man," she hissed, her eyes popping open when Hunter groaned in misery.

The three mechs had drawn quite close since Ratchet had had her close her eyes. They all looked down at them, or more specifically _her_ , as the two medics worked as one unit to try and save the soldier. Jolt's servos glowed brightly as he kept the fiber-optic sized tubes running between her body and Hunter's charged. Ratchet's optics were equally bright. More lines flowed from his right servo, touching at the entry-point of each of the tubes entering the male's body. There was a shift of light in the tubes, the nanites too small to see other than when they clustered together and even then they were indefinable from each other.

The visual of the tubes burrowed under her skin and his, a piece of herself shifting into him, had her gulping. It was surreal and unsettling.

Hunter's groaning died off as abruptly as it had begun when he began to feel the equivalent of the pain she felt. The Cybertronians were silent, their gazes intense. She returned her fingers to his hair, closing her eyes once more.

It was working.

"What do we do now?" She asked no one in particular. "Vector Prime betrayed us all. No doubt he's broken through the vault door and has gained access to the pillars. He killed – he killed the twins."

"Easy, Sparkling." Jetfire's calm voice soothed her a fraction. The air shifted as he came to kneel beside where she lay. The back of one of his digits caressed her cheek and forehead. "The two have passed on to the Well of All Sparks. They were fine mechs and will be greatly missed, but do not let their deaths consume you."

"You say that as though I have a choice in the matter." Anger at their situation bubbled in the pits of her stomach. "The bond we shared – it's the same that you and I share. I feel it with all of you. When one of you is gone…" She gulped. "It's like a chasm is torn in my heart. It bleeds. I can feel it weeping and festering."

She couldn't think about it now. She couldn't wallow in her misery no matter how much she wanted to. Knowing what she did about the pillars, Sam knew that only horrible things could come from Vector Prime taking up sides with the Decepticons. They were planning something that would kill off Earth and its inhabitants as surely as the Fallen would have destroyed them all in his bid to harvest the Sun.

Of course, she knew just where she could get the answers she needed.

"Look, Sweetspark." She peered over her chest and down to Hunter. Beneath his fatigues where it was torn she could see skin mending. The nanites were powerful on their own, but with the Allspark's power having enhanced even the older ones to a certain degree flesh wounds were easily mended. His internal injuries would be repairing fairly rapidly. While her body used the nanites to aid in funneling and controlling the Allspark as well as maintaining her physical health, they would only be mending Hunter's body. Healing would be quicker for him than it was for her.

"I'm glad," she whispered with a gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of her stomach. After several more minutes she felt the transfusion lines pull from her skin. The charge that had thrummed through her body ended as abruptly as it had begun.

"Thank you," she murmured to the two medics as she eased Hunter's head from her lap. When she came to her feet her knees knocked. She stumbled helplessly forward, but Jetfire's servo darted out to catch her. She gripped onto the gunmetal digits desperately.

"You are not well," he spoke softly to her, his red optics trained intently onto where she had latched onto him. Worry dribbled through the connection she'd allowed to fade a shade in her own grief. Had he been a human his brows would be furrowed. "You need…"

"I need to stop what is happening." Stubbornly she pushed herself away from his servo and staggered towards one of the main consoles. With a silent prompt directed to Teletran-1, the A.I. of the Ark, she managed to pull up stolen feeds from traffic monitors all across D.C. The others gathered behind and around her, their focus on the screens lighting up the room.

"It didn't take them long." Her hands were a flurry of movement as they ghosted over the holoformic keys that floated before her.

"Vector Prime…he opened a short-range, limited field portal." Jolt was staring at one of the monitors, a security camera projection from the National Mall. Vector was standing tall before a tower of light, the pillars orbiting it. Decepticons poured forth from it like an ether. Hundreds of them. "Where are they coming from?"

"The moon." She received startled inquiries from them through the bonds. "I can feel the hoard. I have a sense of them coming from nearby. You see they each have a pillar in their servos? They've been in stasis on the moon after gathering the ones not contained in the vault. They've been waiting all these years."

"Waiting for what?"

"I don't know exactly, but I'm going to find out." She flinched physically when she saw through the mounted screens and felt through her bond with him Optimus charging Vector. As strong as Optimus was, Vector Prime was stronger. The mech had both years of experience and added brute strength on his side.

This battle would not end well.

"Jetfire." At the abrupt tone the great mech straightened and offered her his unfaltering obedience. Her head bobbed once in approval. "Collect the others. Bring them to the Ark. We need to rendezvous and plan the next move. We can't stem the tide of Decepticons, but it doesn't seem that they are aimed at destruction right yet. They have another objective."

Her gaze set onto Hunter's healing body. Grumbling acceptance sparked in her heart.

"Deliver Hunter to the hospital outside of his home-town in Texas. Forward a means of payment for his care and an instruction to the physicians that no harm is to befall him. Ratchet, you have his medical files that you can forward to the hospital? Good. Do it." She stepped away from the hovering keypad, a whiff of ozone trickling into her nose as she prepared herself.

"Samantha, please, you musn't…"

"Do as I say!" She barked out, snapping out of existence with a single blink of the eye. Internally she ordered them all, :: Autobots, fall back and regroup to the Ark. ::

Her body emerged with a _pop_ in front of a being she hadn't seen in-person for years. She braced her feet shoulder-width apart and suppressed the urge to vomit again. Her stomach _hurt_. Though she looked up at the behemoth, she was far from playing the submissive. All of her not-so-intimidating height of five-foot-eight glared her nose up at the silver titan.

"Ah, you have come to surrender, Pet?"

Megatron had destroyed the Lincoln Memorial, shattering the marble impersonation of the legendary President. Lincoln's face looked back at her unseeingly from where it had been tossed heedlessly to the floor. Megatron perched himself upon the remain bits of the monument as though it were a throne designed expressly for him. He was the embodiment of confidence and smug satisfaction. His clawed digits tapped at the plate just beneath the horrendous tear in his helm much in the same way that she might tick at her own temple.

"Not on your life, Megatron." Power trembled from her very pores. "What are you doing? Allying with Vector Prime? For what? What is your intention this time?"

"My, my. So many questions." He tsked her. Where had he picked up _that_ mannerism? "Had we not discussed this before? I will not speak of my plans to you. While you may be mine, you are presently warring on the other end of this battlefield. It would be foolish of me to reveal my intentions to the 'enemy', no?"

"So it wasn't just a dream." She shook her head slowly. "You and I really were sharing conversations in that other space. We talked."

"Indeed." There was warmth in that single word. He lifted a servo and held it aloft, but also out towards her. He was beckoning for her. "Come to me, Pet, and I will endeavor to keep you as far from the fray as I am physically able to."

"You can stop this," she told him, anger brimming. She gestured towards where Optimus and Vector still tussled, the student yet unable to surpass the master. Her Prime hadn't listened to her command to draw back, the stubborn glitch. "You and Optimus; you both together can stop Vector Prime. Don't you see that?"

"Silly little femme." He chuckled, though the sound of it was sardonic to her ears. "Why would I oppose that one when we are so close to reclaiming Cybertron?"

"Cybertron is _dead_!" She cut her arms in front of her viciously, her ire inarguable and insurmountable at this point. Surprise shone through his red optics at her vehemence. "There is only one way to save your home world, Megatron, and you are approaching it in the worst way possible. You are _wrong_."

"Come to me, Pet," he sighed, stooping forward as though to scoop her up. "You are distressed over matters that are beyond you. You must calm. _Come._ "

"No." She backpedaled further out of his reach. Her head shook quickly. "I hope for all of our sakes, Megatron, that you see through the cloud of disillusion that you've cloaked yourself with before there's nothing left to look at."

As quickly as she was there she was gone again. There was no change in facial expression that she could have missed, but she did feel an echo of longing and pain that drifted to her in the general vicinity of where Megatron brooded upon his impromptu throne.

The distance this time around wasn't far from the warring Primes. Her feet came to land roughly on the back of one of the military trucks that had been dispatched to handle the alien incursion. Non-N.E.S.T. The humans had vacated swiftly upon realizing that their foe was, to phrase it gently, unstoppable by their relatively paltry means. This alien enemy wasn't the expected feeble green men with large, domed heads. Other vehicles sat idling nearby, abandoned as this one was. The veritable buffet of vehicles had allowed for every one of the emergent Decepticons to scan their own innocuous alternate forms. The whooping of air overhead told her that, in all likelihood, they had taken on more than just terrestrial disguises. Several dozen 'Cons had to have been airborne in the form of helicopters and more compact fighter jets.

There was an echo of terrified human screams in the air as the 'Cons worked their way out of the city. She could feel their withered lines scattering in all directions. The question remained unspoken as to where it was they were all going.

Fighting back pain and nausea, Sam rooted around in the open compartment that stored the heavy-artillery weapons. She made a mental note to have the local commanders informed of their soldiers leaving dangerous weapons so easily accessible to the masses. The human soldiers, wherever they might be, had abandoned the vehicle fully-loaded. Alien incursion or not, it was never a good idea to leave such potent weaponry in the hands of civilians that feared for their lives.

Her hand touched down on a Grizzle Big Boar. It had been loaded, but not fired. In the face of, on averaging height, twenty-foot tall mechanical robots the rifle would have little to no effect on the Cybertronians, but it could be just what she needed.

She set the rifle onto the top of the cab and scoped out her target through the lens. Crosshairs on target, she cried out loudly.

"Hands off of him, you Pit-Spawned bastard!"

The concussion of the blast made her ears feel like they were about to bleed. She might have even blown her eardrums if it wasn't for the nanites performing a quick repair to the offended auditory sensors as the 'bang' sounded so close to her head. She was reloading even as the first shot struck Vector Prime's rust cannon, which he'd so magnanimously pointed towards the true Prime's helm.

Even without the bond with him she could read his disbelief.

:: Get up, Optimus, and go to the Ark. :: At his momentary hesitation she snapped. :: He's the enemy, Optimus Prime! He's chosen his path. It's time for you to choose yours! ::

Jetfire emerged from his own warp and latched onto the smaller Prime's shoulderplates. Vector shouted his denial as his victim was transported away from him. Blue optics burning with fury turned onto her. A sinister smile ticked her own lips upwards even as a shoulder-mounted plasma cannon was aimed in her direction.

"Go to Hell, Vector Prime." The shot she fired next, aimed towards the primary control pillar, was lost in the inferno of the plasma blast. She would have been lost to it, too, had she not thrown herself into yet another warp.

This one seemed to take longer than any of the others and when she emerged she was shuddering and gasping for breath. Her stomach heaved, but nothing emerged. Sam felt herself convulsing helplessly on the grass as a misty cool breeze wafted across her cheeks. String music danced in the air along with the familiar lights of her own invented Star-Shower. Somebody had bought one of the higher-end models for the lights to float across the entire yard as they did.

"Oh God," she coughed, dropping her forehead into the grass. Fire burned in her guts while the dew-ridden turf served as a pleasant counterpart to her raging insides.

"Fight it back," she told herself, concentrating for the first time in her life on directing the nanites onto a specific target. All sight drained from her right eye. The shadows and impressions of color were gone. She was now officially blind from that side and a part of her feared that she might never see through it again now that the nanites weren't there to fend off the degeneration. It was a temporary fear that she set onto the proverbial back-burner.

The agony in her stomach retreated, if only by a small margin, and she felt her heaving come back under control. Her breath wheezed in and out of her chapped lips.

"Ah! It seems that my angel has finally appeared! I was wondering when you'd show up." Samantha sneered at the too-rich voice. He was much too happy for her state of mind.

She pulled herself together enough to rise up onto shaking legs and unsteady feet. As undignified as it was, she used the back of her hand to wipe the spittle from her lip. Dylan Gould pursed his lips at the action, clearly displaying his distaste for her poor manners.

"You're a stupid son-of-a-bitch, you know that?" She found herself croaking, her one good eye narrowing on the arrogant male. He was dressed elegantly in a Georgio Armani suit and had a glass of scotch balanced in his left hand. He was as handsome as any man she had ever seen, but the smarmy act didn't fool her. He was a first-class asshole with a one-way ticket to Hell as far as she was concerned.

"I beg your pardon?" He had the nerve to look offended, if not a little baffled.

It was all an act.

"A total and complete fool. No, _fool_ would be too kind of a word. A fool implies that someone is merely being silly and is otherwise a good person if not a little wacky. You, Dylan Gould, are a miserable, low-life scum of the Earth. You are the worst sort of idiocy ever brought into this plane of existence."

"Samantha, please," he held a hand over his chest where his blackened heart no doubt sat gathering dust. "I am truly hurt. My father once told me that in matters of war it was best to side with those fated to win. Who was I to turn a deaf ear to his sage words? He was a genius of his time, you know."

"He was a self-righteous money-hungry pig." Anger kindled in his dark brown eyes. "Oh, don't be so offended. The apple never falls far from the tree they say."

She stood as stiffly straight as she could even though her back screamed in protest after having been stooped over for so long as her body attempted to heave her guts out. They were standing outside of the Gould mansion, a home that screamed money and superiority. The mist in the air could be credited to the intricately carved fountain in the front garden. The granular fiber-optic lights floated around them lazily.

"You picked the wrong side, Dylan Gould." She pointed an accusatory finger at him. "You sided with the ones aiming for the annihilation of Earth. Are you really dumb enough to believe that they'll save you, an infinitesimal little smudge on the scab that is human existence? What's one more body among billions?"

"I have merely ensured my survival and that of my future children, Miss Witwicky. I would think that you, one of the few who will be spared, would understand the hardships I have had to face. Many hard choices have to be made in dire circumstances. I don't know what it was you did to ensure your livelihood amidst this alien takeover, but you can at least admire another for doing what it takes to live another day."

A cruel smile, much like the one she'd offered to Vector Prime after she'd damaged his putrid weapon, crept over her face. She felt her eyes glow and was rewarded with horror igniting on the male's face. That one uncontrollable act of letting the Allspark's power seep through her eyes gave him that glimpse he so desired as to why she was 'being spared'.

"You think you stand above me, Mister Gould? Ha! That's laughable." The fine hairs on the back of her neck and arms stood on end with Allspark power climbing to the surface of her very being. The lights in the house wavered uncontrollably. The crowd that had begun to assemble from inside the mansion looked around them fretfully.

"You are a louse – a bothersome little flea that requires extermination. You prey off of the strong and capable, siphoning until there's nothing left but a husk of who they once were. You lurk in the shadows and wait for the right moment to strike. I met a being like you before. He was a coward. He wormed his way into other peoples' heads and warped their minds to do his bidding. He fed off their once wholesome ideals and turned them into grotesque squabbles for unobtainable power."

Samantha strode up before the man, her teeth showing in a full sneer. Though he stood steadfast she felt his trepidation. She could all but scent his desire to step down in the face of her authority.

"Do you know what happened to him? He was killed. Slaughtered. I only wish that I could have seen him beheaded for myself." She curled her fists into the lapels of his jacket and tugged. His nose barely brushed hers as she hissed in his face. "You are condemning billions of people for your own selfish desires. Show me that there is at least one redeeming quality left in you and tell me what you know."

A choked gasp of pain shot from her mouth as what felt like hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity thundered through her back. In the back of her mind she was aware that she was being tased. Even further back she felt the blooming terror from the ones she shared a bond with, her pain as their own in this one moment in time.

She fell backward and struck the ground – hard – as the Taser continued to torture her. These convulsions were worse than the ones from minutes earlier when she had been heaving in their own inimitable way. She even felt a blood-vessel burst in one of her eyes as the electrical current amplified.

"Cease and desist in the punishment of Megatron's pet, Dylan Gould." There was a monotone voice, booming loud in her ears which were popping, in the seeming distance. Something brushed across her subconscious, a tentative caress of sorts. It was a soothing balm. "Or I will terminate you."

Almost instantly Dylan was shouting for 'the bufoon' to stop tasing her. It was mere seconds, though it felt like decades, before the shocks cut off. Her body still shuddered in the aftermath. She thanked God and Primus alike that she hadn't wet herself in the process. Seven years ago under 'ze Doctor's' tender mercies had been one time too many.

"Oh, get her up on her feet." Gould ordered someone else. He was probably barking at the person that had tased her. If he came in reaching distance of her she'd gouge his eyes out.

"You will not touch the femme." There went that voice again. She only minutely felt the vibrations through the ground as the Cybertronian approached. Two peds settled in the lush green grass to either side of her prone body. Sam glared balefully up into the red optics of Soundwave.

He didn't look much like she had pictured him as. His bipedal form had undergone some extensive remodeling in recent years. Where once he had looked like Shockwave, his form was now more compact. His faceplates were a harsher version of Sideswipe's or Sunstreaker's. They were a strange amalgamation of owl and feline, his fanged denta showing very prominently. He wasn't as large as she knew him to be in the memories of all those she had a renewed bond with. He was perhaps a foot shorter than her Bumblebee.

Soundwave crouched over her, his head tilting a tad to the side as though to see her better. Foolish thought that was. With his advanced monitoring systems, perhaps second only to a medic's, he could have seen her through steel walls. He lowered his servo very slowly towards her, the claws of his digits angled in the direction of her delicate skin. He could shred her apart with the barest of ticks from his digits.

The warm pad of his foreclaw was the first to brush against her. Her eyes goggled as the touch sparked life into his line. Both ends of it snapped taut, light bursting from one end of it to the other. Wonder and reverence screamed at her from him. His knees struck the ground while the rest of his servo blanketed her, the claws kept deliberately away from her now. Where once he threatened he now sheltered.

:: You are She. :: His inner voice was the same drab, soulless sound she had heard outwardly, but there was a wealth of emotion hidden inside of him. It shook her down to her very core. Obsession rattled in her skull. He was _fixed_ on her. His processor was warped, frayed and singed at every edge, but there was no disputing his intelligence beyond that insanity. He was capable of great evil, had performed some heinous crimes against his fellow Cybertronians, but with the right urge…

:: _My_ precious One. :: She had the impression of him cooing at her. His memories swamped her. A massive headache, a migraine if she were speaking truth, slammed against the inside of her skull. Soundwave wasn't very old for a Cybertronian, but he had accumulated a wealth of knowledge and memories from others in his millennia of existence. He could 'read minds' as it were and had an infinitely large databank to hold every scrap of information he'd ever obtained. It was difficult to differentiate between his memories and all the others.

Soundwave and Shockwave were brothers – still were. Both were scientists on an older Cybertron. Soundwave often served as the sounding-board for Shockwave and the main inspiration for revolutionary ideas. Shockwave was the 'muscle' to Soundwave's 'brain'. The two had been Sparked together, comparable to fraternal twins, but they were not naturally Sparked. Energy was forcefully pulled from the Allspark by their creator and funneled into two half-formed protoforms. That forced existence had bent their screws and explained some of their eccentricities.

The two had a common glitch…

The two, under the right circumstances, fixated on a singular subject and could not be removed from it unless a total wipe was performed on their processors.

And Soundwave had fixated on her.

 _Lucky me_.

Newer memories assaulted her. Conversations with Megatron and Soundwave. The plan to disperse the pillars across the Earth and have Vector open the portal. Unfortunately, the older Prime had no intention of simply ferrying the remainder of the Cybertronian race to Earth…he sought to make a gateway between their worlds. He planned to forcefully enslave the human race and use them like worker-ants to rebuild the derelict planet. They were a workforce eight-billion strong. They were capable of multiplying their numbers like rabbits, at least in comparison to a Cybertronian which Sparked a life once every six-hundred years or so when the Allspark was still at their disposal.

Megatron had sided with Vector Prime because he saw himself as still being the 'Lord' he had always been – at least in his own mind. He also thought that what the elder Prime had told him was truth, but deep down Samantha knew better. Soundwave knew as well with his penchant for 'mind-reading', though he had never been in the position to inform his leader of his own fallacy.

Vector Prime had truly lost his mind because he fully intended not only to open the space bridge to pull resources through…he wished to pull Cyberton from its orbit around Sorisan – Cybertron's Sun – and replace it in their solar system. The two planets would destroy each other and possibly take the rest of their galaxy with them, but the virus-glitched son-of-Unicron was convinced that what he was doing would save his people.

Over her dead body.

"Help me." She pleaded with Soundwave. It felt as though water was rushing through her ears. She traced her fingers across the underside of his servo. He shuddered over her, pleasure pumping through his fluid lines as though the feeling was a physical thing.

:: As you command. :: She'd heard the same from Optimus not long ago and she trusted this mech's vow as implicitly as she had the Prime's.

The set of chest plates, the outer ones, disengaged with a nearly silent snick. A drone dropped out from the confines of his hold, far smaller than even Brains and Wheelie. He was even smaller than the good Doctor; may he burn in the Pit for all time. The drone, Squawktalk, scuttled on sixteen metallic legs. He looked like an iron-clad centipede. A shiver racked over her spine to see him scurrying towards her.

"Ah, isn't that nice. They're giving you a bit of jewelry. Very high-tech. Relays back to them everything that you see and hear as if they were right in the room." Dylan chortled merrily. The man was enjoying this immensely. "I'd warn you, though. It has a bit of a _bite_ to it."

Whatever bite the man spoke of never came into being. Squawktalk circled her right wrist several times, kneading at her flesh like a cat into a plush blanket, before he hunkered down against her skin. He latched on, yes, but there was no sting. The feeling of what could have passed for gel suctioning to her skin underneath his miniscule mass substituted what Gould had undoubtedly hoped to be pain.

"Why – why isn't she being electrocuted?" Her teeth grit to hear the remorse in his tone. The bastard really was sick in the head!

"The femme has suffered under the hand of your subordinate. She shall not suffer again until I deem it necessary." The silent message told her that she would never be made to feel pain again if it was within his power to prevent it. She was his 'precious One'. "You protest?"

"No. Not at all, Sir." He did object, but he had enough self-preservation instincts to know not to baulk. "Tell you what, Sammy…"

"Call me Sammy one more time and I'll punch my best Dulce's through your retina." She pushed at Soundwave's servo in an attempt to rise and do just that, though she'd have to steal one of the rich women's pumps nearby to do so, but the 'Con wouldn't allow her that privilege. He kept her pinned down to the ground, though she was far from pain now.

"Very well, _Samantha_ , I have been faithfully serving Lord Megatron since I was a kid. Dad wanted me to truly take over his company, you know. Couldn't do that without schmoozing the big bosses. I've got spies everywhere except where it matters most. That's where you come in." From where she lay under Soundwave she could see the man toasting the air before taking a healthy swig of his scotch.

"That watch of yours will help us get that last bit of entail we need. We need to know what the next move of the Autobots will be. What are they going to do? How do they plan to retaliate? Simple stuff, really. I'd think you'd be capable of finding out."

She didn't say anything.

"Now, off you go. We have so little time now. The ball is rolling after all." Soundwave returned to his peds and lifted his servo from her. Sam, in turn, struggled up to her own feet. She passed a murderous glower Gould's way. His brows dropped down in confusion. "What's wrong with your eye? It's…it's white?"

"You'll die, Dylan Gould," she promised him. Resolute in her decision, Sam stepped back and away from the looming 'Con and Gould's gaggle of rich somebodies. "You'll die…and I'm going to be the one to send you to Hell."

"You think you can –" but she never heard the end of his speech. Instead she wrapped herself in the cold nothingness of time and space and warped to where she was needed most.

* * *

Optimus Prime wasn't one for pacing.

Pacing was a human habit. It was a full-body muscle spasm as far as his processors could discern. Humans were fidgety creatures incapable of holding still for prolonged periods of time. Their bodies were frail and could atrophy from too much immobility. He also surmised that if they were moving they believed they were doing something and something was far better than doing nothing.

It was with that thought that he found a sense of kinship with the young race.

Optimus wished to pace. His Spark hurt in his chassis. The bond he shared with Samantha churned with unease and no small amount of pain. She was hurting and it hurt him. He wanted to move, to lash out, to fight. Rage burned an unholy fire in his tanks.

Vector Prime had betrayed them all!

It ate at him that he had been so blinded by his idolization of his elder Prime that he'd allowed the mech to unleash this nightmare upon Earth. Earth was to be their world, Cybertron still millennia out of their grasps. The humans had offered them sanctuary. They had a _home_ now. The Allspark had returned to them. They had a future.

They had their Sweetspark.

"Optimus, be at ease." Jazz scolded him, his arms crossed over his chassis. The saboteur hadn't moved since Jetfire had deposited him here. The Seeker sat now in the corner of the control center, his frame drained of energy from initiating so many transpatial warps to bring all to the secured confines of the Ark.

"How can you ask such of me?" Optimus was agitated beyond measure. "I have displeased Her by not following Her command. I allowed Vector Prime to return to this life only to have him turn his dorsis on us. I have doomed us all!"

"This one is not well pleased to hear your pitying woes, Prime." Astrotrain huffed from across the room. "I care not for words of melancholy. What we have done matters not. How we proceed is what we shall be judged upon."

The monolith of an ex-Decepticon spoke very little. He had been one of Megatron's loyal Generals, a powerful warrior on his own, before She had bonded with him. Now he was a great asset to the Autobot faction. He offered sage words when needed, but often kept his vocals silenced.

Whatever he might have spoken, whatever thoughts roiled in his processors, stuttered to a halt as She appeared in the very heart of the control center. She stumbled before toppling forward, Her hands catching Her weight at the last second.

Optimus activated his holoform at the exact moment that Ratchet did his own. They stooped over Her as She groaned in misery. She waved them off tiredly.

"I'm okay." Her left hand rubbed at the Cybertronian clinging to Her right wrist. Discontent triggered in his processor. _Decepticon_ , his databanks told him. Squawktalk. One of Soundwave's drones. "I'm okay."

"What are you doing here, Squawktalk?" Wheelie asked as he and Brains maneuvered their way under Her. "I didn't even know you were planetside!"

The drone disengaged from Her wrist and scuttled towards one of the main banks to Teletran-1. Optimus raised a ped automatically, prepared to bring it down upon the mite before She stayed him with an upturned hand.

"No! Oh God, don't." Her breaths came out in a shaky pant. She shook her head very slowly at him. "I can't lose anyone else today. _Please_."

Beachbreak disengaged from the others, his bipedal form a paltry eight-feet tall – though nearly perfect in size to aid their Sweetspark up from Her crouch. His chief medic scowled fiercely at Her, his scanners whirring to life audibly. Samantha leaned most of Her weight into Beachbreak's side, Her cheek resting against his abdominal plates.

"Please, Ratchet, not now." She waved her hand at them. "If you try and scan me now I'm going to be sick. _Again_. Warping still beats the crap out of my body."

"But," Ratchet started to argue until Jetfire cut in with a growl.

"Leave the femme alone, Ratchet. Transpatial warping fries my circuits after several uses and I have been doing such since before you were a code in your progenitor's optics." The Seeker's frame creaked and hot air vented from his struts as he supported himself more heavily against the wall.

"I will allow you thirty minutes, Sparkling, to regain your footing," the medic conceded, his holoform disengaging now that Beachbreak had Her propped against him. "If your condition has not improved you will come to me so that I may assess your systems."

She smirked a little at them all. "Y'know, I think I prefer you all speaking so formally better than when you put on airs. It may sound stunted to others, but it's a comfort to me."

As was customary since meeting Her years ago, his Spark pulsated and warmed. She often spoke of a 'line' that connected all of them to Her and while they were literal beings he could feel what She spoke of. The unnamable thing that tied him to Her pushed out waves of contentment and serenity whenever She was near. It allowed him to know when their Sweetspark was in need or just simply there. It granted him the knowledge that he was never alone.

Teletran-1, a semi-sentient mechanoid, chirped as Squawktalk connected himself to its mainframe. Varying bits of data uploaded from the drone into the A.I. even as Beachbreak boosted Samantha up and onto a seat they'd custom-designed specifically for Her use upon the Ark's landing. She curled up in the bowled cushion with Her drooping eyes surveying the screens. Fatigued weighed upon Her heavily.

"Soundwave now Bonded to Allspark-human-femme-Samantha Jane Witwicky," Squawktalk verbalized through Teletran-1. "Squawktalk connected also. Prior orders nullified. Change of directive initiated."

"He certainly takes after his Master, doesn't he?" Knockout vented, petulantly eyeing the drone. Some drones, such as Squawktalk, were designed with the sole purpose of serving under one Cybertronian and were programmed with mimicking hardwares and softwares.

"Sweetspark?" Beachbreak was hovering over where their human lay curled up, a blanket synthesized from Ruzontat petals covering Her body. A Ruzontat was a hardy plant harvested from a planet many galaxies away from Earth. The resident life of the planet used the petals in much the same way that they had in making the blanket. They absorbed heat from a being's body and recirculated it back into that body twice over when in physical contact.

"I promise I'm fine." She tugged playfully at his mech's audio receptors. "Just off-kilter from the warping. We have more pressing issues at the moment, however."

"Nothing supersedes your wellbeing, Samantha," Optimus intoned solemnly, not liking how pale Her skin was. The marker they'd applied to Her leg years prior, what She called a tattoo, told him that Her blood pressure had dropped and Her core temperature had lowered. Matters did not sit well with him in that moment.

She smiled softly for him. "I know you believe that and I am honored, but I really am okay." She gestured towards where the drone was still uploading data into Teletran-1. "We have an 'in' now. Soundwave will make sure their plans continue undeterred while Squawktalk acts as our gopher."

"What is it that you know, Sweetspark?"

She turned Her eyes to him first before making eye-to-optic contact with the rest of Her Bonded Cybertronians. Melancholy beat against him from Her side of the bond.

"For sure?" Her head dropped back and a sorrowful sigh passed from Her lips. "The human race is going to make the biggest mistake of their lives very soon and there's not a damned thing I can do to stop it."

* * *

 **Notes :** Happy New Year, everyone! I hope everyone had a less chaotic holiday than I did. :-) Well wishes to you all in this new year.


	8. Chapter 8: Innocence Lost

**Chapter Eight: Innocence Lost**

"Miss Witwicky?"

Samantha fiddled with the frosted glass in her hands as she peered up and under her lashes at the assembly of five men, their toned bodies encased in black suits and dark shades. Not a one of them had even a twitch of a smile on their lips.

"Mmm-hmmm," she hummed, sipping at the vanilla-caramel milkshake she'd purchased not even five minutes ago. Her gaze immediately switched back to the looping bulletin playing on every news channel across the globe. It was like Egypt all over again.

Vector Prime had released a pre-recorded message to the Earth. He stood proudly on the ice-cream parlor's screen, a veil of self-importance masking his bearded face. He was staunchly firm in his belief that what he was doing was right. He hadn't the faintest inkling that he had lost his god-damned mind!

" _Citizens of Earth; I am Vector Prime, the true Prime of the Autobot faction. Mine are a war-ravaged people, but that war has reached a blessed end. Our home world has suffered much travesty and requires new life. Your world offers much in the way of natural resources that we may use to rebuild our world._

" _You will renounce resistance. For peace to exist between our races you must exile the traitorous spawn that threaten your existence. Immediately. Any dalliance on your part and I will be forced to open my space bridge and unleash the Hoard upon the Earth, a plague far worse than any of your religious teachings could hope to embody._

" _We want no war with the people of Earth. We want only for peace. Long live Cybertron. Long live Earth. Expel the rebels. We await your reply._ "

Sam sneered into her milkshake even as she sipped at the flavorful and decadently sweet concoction. The vanilla clung to the white-blonde fibers of her upper lip. The scar tissue was deadened on the one side and often made her nervous of accidently spilling drinks on herself, but she hadn't made a fool of herself in these past years even once.

Following the elder Prime's message there would be variating reports from across the globe of the present state of affairs. Occasional rebellious displays by the people. Sightings of Decepticons crawling across the globe to some unknown destination. It had been a pleasant surprise on her part to hear the unexpected outcry from every 'Tom, Dick, and Harry'…

" _Earth to Vector Prime and his henchmen; go fuck yourselves!_ "

The years that she had been working with the Autobots and N.E.S.T. had paved the way for their alien allies. While she still believed that the human race could have gone another few years before the Cybertronian race was given the green light to come out of the proverbial closet, the time she'd spent with the powers-that-be had eased their entry. The world leaders and the select groups formed therein with the intention of promoting the 'aliens' had openly admitted to the general populace of their doings. The brief glimpses humans had to the Cybertronians evolved into full-blown introductions.

There had been video footage and audio recordings aplenty to show every 'Joe-schmoe'. Environmental disasters which had ceased by a miracle of God or tactical strikes from one country to another which had been snuffed out like a candle were revealed to have been prevented because of the _real_ Autobots. Where once she might have denied the right to release the proof of Cybertronian existence she now cheered for it.

Let them all see what they owed to the other race of beings.

Leo Spitz, who covertly worked for N.E.S.T. on the side of his Graphic Design gig, was up to his bushy-brows in pleas for more footage.

"Come with us." The 'lead' agent grumbled to her, visibly put-off by her disregard of him. No doubt he was used to ordering people to jump and expecting her to ask him exactly which building she should propel herself off from.

"There's a politer way to end that statement, sir." She sipped her drink again, already having set her tip onto the Formica tabletop. One of her brows pitched up towards her hairline when he continued to glower at her. "Here's a hint; it ends with a 'please'."

The man didn't even grunt in acknowledgement.

"I've talked to computers with more expression, K." Was she imagining things or did she actually feel the tension in the room ratchet up a notch at the deliberate mention of a character from _Men In Black_? A giddy smile fought to rise out of her.

"Please," he growled at her, gesturing with a stiff arm towards the glass doorway leading back out onto the street, "come with us, Miss Witwicky."

"Can I bring my drink? It's quite good. I'll have to put a review on Yelp to help give 'em a boost of clientele. Would you like one?" She was asking more to ruffle his feathers than anything. This was like how tourists tried to get the Royal Guard in England to break out of character and emote. She found a sort of pleasure from picking on the man.

Again, no response.

She pouted.

"You're no fun, are you K?" Shaking her head, she tossed another twenty onto the table to compensate for the glass she would be leaving with. She hoisted herself up onto her feet, tuning out yet another repeat of Vector Prime's diatribe. Her hand reached down to snatch up the backpack she'd kept cozied between her feet and swung both straps over her left shoulder. The men parted for her to lead before closing ranks behind her after she'd exited through the door.

The blonde had warped back home in the wee hours of the morning after the 'conference' she'd had with all of her Cybertronians. None of them liked to hear what she knew was coming and disapproved of her plans thereafter. Squawktalk had relayed any and all information he could via Soundwave, when the Decepticon General wasn't occupied in fooling his Lord into believing that the mech was still on the 'Con's side. Once their impromptu meeting had concluded the tiny drone had disengaged from Teletran to reconnect with her wrist. He hugged the appendage now and pulsed gentle waves of electrical heat into her arm which then coursed through the rest of her body. It made the ache in her joints feel a bit better.

The man she'd dubbed as 'K' opened the door to one of the government-issue SUVs for her. Not in chivalry, she knew. The stick-up-his-butt was just trying to usher her into the back seat where she'd have no control of the locks herself. He was poorly informed if he thought a simple lock would keep her from going where she intended to go.

"Where exactly is this escort headed?"

"To an air-strip, Miss Witwicky." Enter long-suffering sigh. "Get into the vehicle."

"No more 'please', K? I feel slighted." Her snicker could have been heard across the street as he slammed the door on her in irritation once she was seated.

Her head knocked back against the leather headrest as the car began to roll forward. She hadn't gotten a single second of sleep since this whole mess had begun. The fatigue was dragging her down. Not to mention that she was beginning to think that there might be something seriously wrong with her. After directing the nanites to concentrate their rejuvenating properties onto her abdominal area, the sight in her right eye entirely absent still, she'd felt a major change in pain-levels. She didn't feel like vomiting as much as she had before and her gullet wasn't on fire anymore, but if she just had whatever flu was going around wouldn't the nanites have expelled it from her systems? Whatever she had was lingering.

There wasn't anything to be done for it. The Earth was on the cusp of yet another disaster and she needed to be present in any capacity that she could. She'd continue to grit her teeth and pray to God and Primus alike that she'd make it through this alive.

She wasn't a cat. She'd used up an extra life she shouldn't have had to begin with once already. There wasn't another eight waiting for her to dole out as every end of the world fiasco struck her across her skull.

Whatever power-nap she'd hoped to get wasn't nearly worth the effort it took to get there. It seemed as if she'd just dozed off when 'K' was shaking her shoulder gently to wake her. It wasn't consciously done when she groaned in misery.

"Are you well, Miss Witwicky?" He sounded no more worried than he'd looked amused back at the parlor, but she still answered as though he did care.

"I'm fine. We're here?" Stupid question, yes, but she refused to feel ashamed. She was exhausted.

'K' backed up a few paces, allowing her to exit the SUV. They were parked on a private air-strip outside of the city limits. Private was loose terminology for the parcel of land since any yahoo could stumble across it. It was simply restricted to government-funded aircrafts. Air Force One, had she not been in the air 'guarding' the President of the United States, was frequently stashed in the nearby hangar.

Samantha didn't need to be led to the idling jet. It was one of the ritzier crafts she'd flown in once or twice when the need arose to schmooze one of the neighboring dignitaries to the United States, but she far preferred the comfort of Astrotrain's cockpit or even Jetfire's. There was something to be said about knowing with absolute certainty that she was the safest human being in the entire universe, tucked up nice and cozy inside one of their alts.

The interior she knew would be all black leather and cherry wood for the floors. It wasn't what she liked to call the 'stretch plane' which sported a small sleeping chamber to the rear. This one was the 'standard'. The seats were all wide and able to recline. A flight attendant always manned the bar, which happened to boast a mean roast-beef sandwich in addition to the stiff drinks so many of her colleagues drowned themselves with. It was a flying taproom to most of them.

When she entered, Sam wasn't entirely surprised to see that one of the seats was occupied.

Charlotte Mearing had a cold compress pressed to her temple with her feet tucked up under her rear. Sam offered the elder woman a respectful nod before snatching the rocking recliner across from her. The flight attendant, a jovial young man that went by the name of Yancy, hurried to her side to offer his services.

"I'll have a water, please, and could you also grab a blanket for me?" At his affirmative, she returned her full attention to Charlotte. Her next inquiry was entirely rhetorical. "Rough day?"

 _If looks could kill_ …

"I owe you an apology," the director grumbled half to herself and half to her neighbor. Sam raised her arms when Yancy returned with the proffered glass of mineral water and a Sherpa blanket which he tucked around her waist. She nodded politely when he reminded her to buckle up for takeoff.

"What for?" She urged Charlotte once the man had returned to his seat to the forward part of the plane. The door slammed shut behind her and the plane began its forward movement.

"I've been trying to undermine you at every turn. I realize, probably too late, that I've been overzealous in my role within N.E.S.T. As Ambassador and Liaison, you were the one charged with the care of the Autobots and their relations with Earth. I'm just the pencil-pusher." Sam snorted at that and Mearing smirked a little. "Okay, so maybe a bit more than a pencil-pusher. Still, I have had no right to challenge you at every turn as I've done. For that I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven." She gestured towards the swollen bump just barely hidden under the director's compress. "What happened?"

"Vector Prime throws a damned good tantrum." She eased the compress away from her forehead, wincing as she did so. Sam's nose scrunched in sympathy to see the knot there. It was bruised all the way from her brow to her hairline. "He destroyed most of the base and all of the equipment inside while he waited for that cannon of his to disintegrate the door I'd had the pillars locked behind. My convoy wasn't quick enough to get out of range of one of the Abrams he tossed. Really, I'm content now that I never had children. He looked exactly like a spoiled brat tossing a toy train that refused to toot for him anymore!"

The younger blonde chuckled softly. "If it's any consolation, he had us all fooled. I really should have known something was wrong sooner and snuffed it out, but I let my faith in the Autobot name blind me."

Mearing opened her laptop in the silence that followed. Sam had just managed to ease into a facsimile of sleep with the rhythmic sounds of typing of computer keys floating around the cabin when Vector Prime's holier-than-thou voice resonated within the tranquil quiet. She snarled loudly at it, narrowing her eyes at the elder woman.

"I'm sick of hearing his voice," she snapped, beating down the urge to lift her foot and kick the laptop screen in. Mearing obligingly turned the recording off, switching to a written report. At least she assumed it was a written report since her eyes darted back and forth across the screen as she read. "Where is it we're going, anyway?"

"Florida. The Kennedy Space Center to be specific." Sam felt her stomach drop down to her toes.

"The Xanthium?"

"Yes."

"The human race has agreed, though! They told Vector Prime to stuff his demands up his aft! They can't make the Autobots…"

"It doesn't matter." Mearing waved her frantic words off. "The fat, old, bald men that turn the keys on that all-important console with the big yellow hazard symbol on it have spoken their peace. If the Autobots aren't off the planet before nightfall, they're going to nuke 'em wherever they stand. They'll take half of a continent with them if they have to."

"Gods." Sam scrubbed a hand roughly over her face. "They're right about us."

"Who?"

"The Cybertronians! We really are as stupid and barbaric as they say." Mearing's expression was all shock. Apparently she was one of the many that had never heard any of the 'Bots speaking derogatorily about the human race. The 'Cons were one thing, but the more gentile faction kept their audios silenced about their dislike of her race. "We're willing to cut off our noses to spite our faces! They're so geared up to annihilate our only chance for survival that they're willing to kill our own."

Her foot jerked in her agitation and she managed to kick her backpack onto its side. Mearing peered over her laptop to eyeball the faintly thrumming satchel.

"What is that?"

"The Matrix of Leadership."

Her elder gasped in yet another rare show of emotion. Perhaps that hit she took had jarred her back into the world of the living? "I thought that it was in Optimus Prime's possession."

"Not since he reenergized Vector Prime. It's attracted to me because I was the one that found it six years ago." Not a total lie, but neither was she telling a whole truth. She could never tell another human being the extent to which she was tied to the Cybertronian artifact or the race itself. "I need to give it back to him before…"

She was choking on the words. She had known it was coming. She'd told them all exactly what would happen. Despite the masses aligning, the United Nations throwing up their middle fingers at the disgraced Prime and his hapless minions, it was bound to happen that some foolhardy, trigger-happy yuppies thought it would be the wisest idea to 'obey' the scary alien robots. There was always going to be someone that thought that if they just did as they were told, they'd end up heroes. No one believed that their decisions could and most likely would blow up in their faces.

Just the simple thought of them leaving her…

An agonized whimper dripped from her mouth against her will. Sam felt her breath catch in her throat and her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. Saying goodbye for any length of time; could she really do it? They wouldn't leave her permanently, but could she live even one more day without them in her life? She imagined them all gone – her left alone – and she felt her whole world shatter to a million pieces.

:: Precious One. I am here. :: Her head ached to have Soundwave's voice in her head, but in a way it was comforting. Of all of the others she shut out of the bonds, the Decepticon Communication's Officer was still twined around her. A part of that was due to Squawktalk being in physical contact with her and his own metaphysical connection with his Master, but the bigger part of her understood that Soundwave's instability made him more dependent on her. His fixation with her had him wrapping himself to tightly around her that she could barely see straight.

She could have baulked. She should have been fighting back his need. Instead she let herself wallow in the stunted expression of comfort he swaddled her in.

"Get a grip, honey," she demanded of herself, shaking her head violently to clear her head. "Just breathe."

"Do you need something?" The director offered slowly, leaning herself back into her seat. Sam shook her head again, but this time in denial instead of frustration. "Well, if you don't need anything you might as well try and get some sleep. I say this in the nicest way possible, but you look like shit Miss Witwicky."

"And that goose egg you're sporting makes you the perfect stand-in for the bobble-head I broke that used to sit on my console. See; now we're both rude."

Charlotte puffed out a half chastising, half exasperated sigh. She didn't speak, however. The rhythmic tapping of keys returned. That was soon followed by an off-key humming. Sam had never known the elder woman to hum.

Sam allowed her eyelids to close and pulled the excess fabric of her blanket up over her shoulders. Mearing was at least right about one thing… She _was_ tired. Her eyes closed once more and this time the drone of Vector Prime's voice didn't reawaken her.

There were still moments to be grateful for, as seldom as they were these days.

* * *

Once, when she'd been ten years old, Samantha remembered her grandfather taking her to the Kennedy Space Center. It had been the Endeavor launching that day. She'd been so little and awed by the whole process. She could still remember sitting in the stands some distance away and cheering when the rocket had shot up into the sky. The billowing smoke trail had been something of a surprise at the time. Her grandfather had looked equally delighted, like a kid opening the best of his presents on Christmas morning.

The little girl she had once been was convinced that she would never see anything more spectacular in her life.

There was no wonder now as she surveyed the Xanthium from mere meters away from the launch pad. The buzz of activity was astounding. Human technicians rushed to and fro, their paces frantic as they prepared for the alien ship's launch.

The ship wasn't nearly as large as the Ark, which was going to be left on Earth, hidden from curious eyes. That ship, they'd told her almost from the start, was to be her escape should she ever find need of it. Teletran-1 was programmed to respond to all of her commands as though she were its Captain from the very start. If Earth was to die…if Earth died then she was to flee to the shelter the ship could provide her and retreat into space.

Knowing she had a way out didn't make this moment any easier to bare.

The Xanthium was barely a quarter as large as the Ark, made with speed and temporary housing in mind. It could hold more soldiers than all that needed to be on its back as it was jettisoned from the planet, but it would not be a luxurious ride. It was covered by a primitive shell designed by a human engineering team so that outsiders wouldn't see how truly foreign it was until far too late. Under that shell, however, sat a startling black and orange monstrosity, all smooth lines and oddly seductive shapes. The only harsh planes lay to the forward most cockpit, which consisted of mostly Cybertronian tempered glass. The view from that cockpit was something to be fawned over.

"Glad I'm not the only one worked up right now," she muttered more to herself as yet another technician tripped over their own two feet.

"Really, the launch isn't what has them riled up. It's those Wreckers."

A heartfelt smile bubbled up at that. She could hear them, too, coming closer. The three were shouting obscenities, an eclectic mixture of English and Cybertronian, their accents strung up somewhere between Irish and Australian.

The Wreckers, Leadfoot, Topspin, and Roadbuster, were either hiking up behind one of the recently reworked thrusters or catching a ride on it. They were near enough that she could hear them busting a stout man's chops about having incorrectly turned a screw. The three were louder than a fraternity of young men hooting over the sorority's wet t-shirt contest. Or should she compare them to a gaggle of drunken 'bros' arguing over a referee's call in the latest football game?

"Oh, back off of the poor man, you lunkheads! Off with you now!"

Her grin stretched wider when Robert Epps stomped out from behind the thruster, his arms waving in vexation. He had the face her mother had had when she'd been very little and invited a bunch of other girls over for a sleep-over. It was a face that screamed enervation and torment. Heck, most high-schoolers had the same expression when forced to sit through yet another sex-Ed program on the outdated rolling televisions.

Did schools even have those anymore?

"'Ey! Who you be tellin' tah git, boy? Ah should'nea give ya any o that highgrade ye like no more. Tell yer wife on ye." Roadboaster articulated with a quick swing of his arm.

"Don' rightly matter no more, 'Busta." Leadfoot stomped his was past the thruster, his torso 'giggling' comically, and sneered without showing so on his faceplates. "Dese humans 'ave 'ad enough of us. Shippin' us off without even a thank'ee! Ungrateful urchins!"

"I take offense to that," she piped in, beaming up at the three lumbering constructors. Despite their grouped moniker, the three were some of the best builders the Autobots had ever had the fortune to work with and call one of their own. While the trio was raucous and rowdy-to-the-extreme, they were also fierce fighters and loyal friends. There wasn't a better bunch to have your back in a pinch.

"Sweetspark!" They cheered as one, each of them hauling aft to present themselves to her. Their servos groped at her, aching to touch. A conflicting mixture of sadness and thrill swirled in their blue optics.

She couldn't resist stroking their presented faceplates when they had lowered themselves to her level. It never ceased to amaze that such powerful beings, creatures that had lived for thousands of years, could still prostrate themselves before another with no hesitation or regret for doing so.

"I'll miss you," she whispered tearfully, knocking her forehead to her nasal plates in turns.

"We'll always be with you, Sweetspark." No accent. No subterfuge. Just straight, simple truths. Leadfoot gazed at her imploringly, the other two with mirroring reverent regards. "No one and nothing can change that."

"Back off of her, you three. Kid needs a little room to breathe, doesn't she?" Epps shouldered his way between two harder-than-steel shoulderplates and tugged her into his arms for a hug. She didn't stiffen as she used to eight years ago when men were strictly off limits. Instead she embraced him right back. It was a platonic hug, one she'd have given any one of her best friends. For his part, Epps treated her like an honorary little sister.

"I'm not exactly a kid anymore, am I Rob?" She waggled her brows as him even as she sniffled away her building tears.

"Don't matter how old you get, kid; you'll always be that smart-mouthed brat that ran her ass through the wreckage of Mission City with Megatron dogging her feet."

"Wait, you're _her_?!" The stout man that the trio had been pestering gawked at her as he passed them by. His jaw was hanging slack. The Wreckers spun up and onto their peds and took up defensive positions in front of her. All they had to do was have Topspin hide her behind his struts. The three-mech show of force was a little much.

"Enough jibber-jabberin'! Git back tah work yah lazy shite!" Topspin – speak of the devil – kicked a ped in the direction of the male. While he didn't make contact, the man squealed and ran off as though he'd been booted by the world's largest steel-toed foot.

When the techs and Wreckers had continued on, Sam, Epps, and Mearing hung back and brooded. Well, she and Epps brooded. Mearing maintained her persona of non-caring and unfeeling as well as she ever had. Maybe she should start calling the director 'K', too?

"Can you believe this?" Epps gestured towards where the Wreckers noisily hoisted the thruster and began its reinstallation to the Xanthium. His head swayed from side to side in shame. "After all they've done for us and this planet? They're just going to ship them off and try and wash their hands of it all."

"Ain't no washing their hands of this." Simmons' voice echoed from behind them. Her eyebrows pitched almost to her hairline as she turned and saw him, along with Dutch, coming to their sides. Simmons was in a wheelchair, his left leg from his knee to his foot encased in a traditional cast. Beyond that he didn't seem to be too terribly banged up. Dutch had a minor scratch over his left cheek, but that injury was superficial at best.

"How'd you get here? Wouldn't have thought they'd fly you out to Florida." She gave him a cool eye.

"National security. Couldn't have me anywhere where I could get myself into some trouble." His smirk was all devil. "Turns out they don't know me all that well if they think keeping me under the Man's thumb is going to keep me down."

"How many pain-killers they got you on?" She inquired, idly noting the semi-crazed look in his eyes.

"A few," he demurred. His murky gaze fell onto Charlotte Mearing. "Ah, Director Mearing. How good it is to see you again, ma'am." Samantha _knew_ she wasn't imagining things when she saw the elder woman shiver.

And it wasn't from being cold.

"Ex-agent Simmons," she greeted curtly.

"You can stop this, y'know." Simmons rolled himself forward, closer to the director. "As a whole, the Earth doesn't want to see them go. They're the best chance we have at surviving Vector Prime and whatever cockamamie plan he has rolling around in that toaster for a brain he has."

"That may be true, but it's out of my hands." She glanced over their shoulders before pursing her lips tightly together. "If you'll excuse me." She didn't wait for an at-you-leave. The elder woman stomped away with all of the grace of a woman bred to bring men to their knees with the click of her pen.

"If she can't do it, then you have to, Sam." Simmons was pleading with her. She never thought she'd see the day. The man had once been a part of an organization designed to contain, study, and even eliminate the Cybertronians. Why would he be so adamant that they stay now? Deep, deep down she knew he'd changed from the man he had been, but it was startling all the same to see how turncoat he'd become on the matter. "You know them better than anyone. Make them understand!"

"I can't!" She hollered back, her whole body tense as she watched all of her mechs and femme approach the Xanthium from the opposite side of where they now waited. Her vision trebled in her one good eye from tears and she felt the liquid pool up over her other eyelid to match.

"There are men and women out there determined to see an end to the Autobots even if they have to take the rest of us out to do it. It's either they leave and we hope that the stragglers that think that Vector Prime will keep his word learn otherwise – preferably before it's too late – or we stand around like stubborn ninnies and watch as those stragglers kill us all out of spite. I have no good options here!"

Silence. Always more and more silence. Why was it that no one else ever had an answer for anything?

An hour later, mere hours before sunset, Sam strode forward and pushed herself to within a few feet of Optimus Prime's peds. He was looking up into the sky, the same direction that his ship would be leaving. Her heart clenched.

"What are you going to do, Optimus?" She touched a shaking hand to the blue and red paintjob on his shin. Her voice was soft and imploring. "Please tell me that you're coming back. Tell me you know what to do. I can't – I can't do this on my own."

There was a wealth of pride in the Prime's chassis and Spark for her. She could feel that no matter how she deadened their bond. He pivoted his helm so that he could look down at her from his impressive height. His optics glowed very brightly in the waning light.

"You can do this on your own, Samantha. There is nothing that you can't do. You are the strongest and bravest femme I have ever had the honor of serving." His fisted servo pressed against his chassis over his Spark chamber. His head bowed. "I Pledged to you, Samantha, human-Allspark of Cybertron. I will never renounce my claim on you."

She remembered that day long ago. Every one of them had Pledged to her, the ex-Decepticons included. It was the most solemn vow a Cybertronian could make. If they broke their Pledge they would be dispatched and sent to the Pit, their honor destroyed and their hope for peace in the Well of All Sparks for the rest of eternity, unless the Allspark called them forth again, gone.

She lurched forward and hugged his shinplates, hot tear tracks snaking down her cheeks.

"I love you," she murmured into his leg. A hiccupped cry left her.

"And I love you, my little Sparkling." His servo caressed her back softly before he gently extracted himself from her arms. "You must go, now, Sweetspark. You must retreat a safe distance. Our time left on this planet is brief."

Sobbing mostly quietly, Sam met the woeful stares of them all. This, somehow, hurt worse than anything else in her life ever had. It was like each of them dying and being pulled out of her heart, tearing great bleeding holes into her fragile soul. Their connections with her still thrummed with life, but she was blocking. She couldn't stand to feel them walk away and leave.

It would kill her.

A baleful shout crawled up from her very core as she whirled around and ran away. Her bag, the one containing the Matrix of Leadership, she left on the ground at the Prime's peds.

 _Coward_.

* * *

Robert Epps stood behind Sam Witwicky as she barely held herself together in the launch control facility. They faced the expansive windows that revealed the readied Xanthium. The Autobots and their allies had long slipped inside its hull, but he felt as though he could still see them standing side-by-side, a veritable wall of living metal. Mechanical sentries that had saved Earth several times over only to be shunned from the one and only home they had left.

Had he been any more of a softy, he'd be crying right along with the young woman he braced his hands upon. Her shoulders shook rapidly under his palms and he could hear her sniffling. This would destroy her.

He wondered at that.

Megatron hadn't been able to kill her. The Fallen hadn't been able to fell her – or at the very least _keep_ her down. She'd faced would-be rapists and brutality that no person should have to face. She'd brought together entire nations in an effort to give the Transformers a home they would be welcomed in and could be proud of. She'd grown up well past her time and hadn't uttered even the barest of complaints to anyone that wasn't one of _her_ Transformers.

 _This_ would kill her.

Without the Transformers on Earth, he didn't think the kid would survive. She wouldn't be able to keep herself together. She would have no one, in her mind, left to fight for. Despite having a wealth of humans willing to go to the ends of the Earth for her she would be all alone.

He wanted to hit something.

"Years from now, provided we're not all dead or enslaved, they're gonna ask us where we were this day." Simmons was glaring out the same window, his ire apparent. So was his disgust. For once Rob felt a kinship with the tall Jewish man. "You know what we'll say? That we were here, standing by and doing nothing while we exiled the only beings in the entire Universe that might have a prayer of saving humanity. Again."

The countdown concluded in the background, the Xanthium blasting off of the Launchpad in perfect harmony with the ending call. The engines were dialed down appropriately, Epps knew from multiple explanations given to him by the Wreckers, since the alien tech would have torn their atmosphere asunder with their power. The ship could have been gone from sight within mere seconds, but instead they watched its druggedly slow ascent with ashen faces.

Was there a worse sight to behold?

He was startled when a cellphone began to ring. What asshole would leave their cellphone turned on when the world as they knew it was coming to an end? An irate tirade died on his lips when the braided blonde before him tiredly brought her phone up to her ear.

"Calling to gloat?" She hissed into the receiver, venom spewing from her normally placid mouth. He caught a male's voice, the barest hints of it, chiding her and remarking over the 'tearful goodbye'. "You got what you wanted, you bastard. You've won."

" _Not yet_." Two words he could never unhear.

A glint of light caught his eye through the glass and dawning horror ripped through his guts. An F-22 Raptor spun and dove towards the slow-moving ship as it continued its ascension.

"What in the fuck is a Raptor doing out here?!" Mearing screeched, diving for an emergency phone.

"That ain't no regular Raptor," Epps hollered to be heard over her, semi-gently pushing Sam out of his way as he pressed himself against the window.

" _Starscream!_ " Several security personnel had to detain the young woman as she would have hurtled herself straight through the glass partition in her attempts to reach a ship that was impossible at this point to save. He himself beat at the barrier, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

Starscream tore through the air so swiftly that he was but a blur of light and smokey color. His whole body dove through the central hull of the ship just to the left of where the main power chamber resided. When he emerged, he was pivoted in the opposite direction and open-fired on the revealed power-core.

From one second to the next, the Xanthium was morphed from a steadily departing ship to a blazing inferno. Pieces broke off in a raging fire. Several more compartments, areas in which the Autobots would have been positioned, set off like firecrackers. One explosion after the next until he was forced to cover his eyes or go blind.

A high-pitched wail, one synonymous with gruesome and painful death, reverberated in the room. The windows visibly shook. Rob's wide eyes set onto Samantha with true fear in his heart.

Samantha lay on the ground, her back bowed with her chest heaving towards the Heavens. She'd fisted her hands over her chest and was doing an admirable job of trying to rip her own heart out. He tackled her without thinking, caging her hands in his own and pinning them down to either side of her.

She screamed for many minutes, the sound morphing into a banshee's death-rattle near the end.

"Goddammit! Someone get a sedative!" He was sweating in his efforts to keep the much smaller woman beneath him. She wasn't small for a woman and he knew that she kept in good physical shape, but her strength was almost super-human. The security guards snapped out of their stupor at some point and were assisting him, but even with all three of them they were bucked and alternately thrown across the room.

"She's going to kill herself!" Simmons, may wonders never cease, pulled a tranquilizer out from his trench coat pocket. He teethed the protective cap of the needle off before carefully tossing the syringe towards Rob. "Stick her anywhere! That shit'll knock out a bull-elephant in the right doses."

He did so, depressing the plunger after pushing the needle into her right shoulder. She fought for another minute or so, but the ex-agent had been right. The tranq worked quickly and sapped the girl of her fight.

Tears ran rivers over her face and her rattling had again turned to another sound. She sobbed with abandon. As the sedative continued to do its job, those sounds too tapered off. So focused on her dying fight, he just barely missed catching eye of the heavy watch Sam had been wearing scurrying off on spindly legs out the doorway.

He and Simmons shared a look over the medicated woman's splayed body.

What did they do now?


	9. Chapter 9: Ruin

**Chapter Nine: Ruin**

 _Chaos descended upon Chicago, a Black Plague returned to finish a job it had started so many years ago._

 _The fiery embers of the destroyed Xanthium were still drifting lazily towards the earth when Vector positioned his pillars strategically atop what the humans referred to as Trump Tower. The central pillar, the Control, pulsed at his command. A shimmering veil ricocheted out from it like a ripple in calm waters. For several breaths the unknowing citizens of the city gaped and marveled at what they perceived to be a meteorological wonder. It was as though the Arora Borealis had deigned to shine its light upon the overworked city and its inhabitants, giving them a brief glimpse of one of the more fantastical parts of their world._

 _And then the blue beam of light shuddered up into the sky and from its peak poured forth the Horde._

 _Battle cruisers, clunking monoliths of Cybertronian metal either thieved from enemy servos or having belonged to the Decepticons from conception, whistled through the encroaching night air. Smaller ships dropped from the cruiser hulls and sailed through the building chasms. First there was one, and then three, followed by ten. In the span of several stuttering, fearful heartbeats the sky was swallowed by Decepticon war ships._

 _There was no warning when the shots began firing._

 _People screamed as cannons and bombs went off all around them. There was no pattern to the destruction. Buildings were struck from above and below causing mortar and metal to collapse in on itself. Cars were set aflame by swirling plasma blasts, one exploding engine igniting another in the clustered streets until, eventually, the roads resembled rivers of lava winding in and out of crumbling buildings._

 _Men, women, and children ran for shelter that was not to be found. Decepticon soldiers not piloting Destroyers and Fighters were leveling the innocents on foot. Some humans were smote as if by God, their bodies disintegrated in a fraction of a second while others suffered, bleeding out from wounds far too grave to continue on. Mothers clung desperately to children as red optics glowed malevolently above them. Stray bits of wi-fi enabled filming done by the few that could revealed carnage unlike any other man had before witnessed until that two fettered out of existence as the persons were laid to waste in a once thriving city._

 _The rest of the world watched with dawning horror as they saw their inevitable and untimely end coming on the backs of red-eyed demons from another world._

 _Above them all stood Vector Prime, who preened in the fiery light of a city being lain to ruin._

* * *

The night air was cool against her cheeks as she sat on the hood of Robert Epps' '65 Mustang, her right foot braced against the fender. She idly rubbed at her wrist where Squawktalk had once been affixed to her. The area was a little red and swollen, but otherwise fine. He must have fled just after Epps had sedated her.

That still chafed her.

"Oh, come on, Sammy. Are you ever going to forgive me?" Epps clapped her on her back as he emerged from the gas station they had come to settle at. They were in a little no-name town in Indiana, the night waning around them. In the wake of the attack on Chicago it seemed that everyone across the United States had taken to sheltering in their homes. There were so few people to be seen and those that were hovered over television monitors with horrified fascinations, praying against hope that there might finally be a spark of good news to come from the tragedy.

There wasn't so much as a glimmer of faith for anyone left.

Sam tossed the dark-skinned man a black look, her jaw locked firmly. She jerked in her NASA bomber's jacket, shrugging the fabric farther up her shoulders. Her skin was hot to the touch, but she felt so very cold on the inside. She'd been shivering almost since she awoke from Simmons' sedative-cocktail an hour after it had been injected into her.

No one seemed able to believe that she'd shaken off the drug's affects so quickly.

Epps sighed deeply.

"Look, I didn't have a choice. If I didn't do that you would have," he began only for her to cut her hand sharply between them.

"I would have killed myself." She didn't bother to inject even a hint of emotion into what she had just uttered. That in itself paled the tough-as-nails soldier more than anything else. Her hands clenched as she fought not to give in to the pain in her heart.

Her attention split from him to look out onto the darkened landscape. She had watched a couple non-descript vehicles coming up the rise and felt instinctively that these were the people Rob had been calling ever since they departed the Space Center with two bitching ex-agents in their wake. She didn't know who was more flustered, Simmons at not being able to be a part of their team or Mearing for being saddled with Simmons.

"They know this is a fool's mission? That they're not likely to be going home?"

Epps stood beside her instead of seating himself, stashing some candy bars and energy drinks into the knapsack he'd toted along for their journey. He offered her a Redbull, but she grimaced with a shake of her head. She couldn't stomach anything right now. She didn't know if she'd be able to eat or drink anything again.

"Why do you think I could only get five of them to respond? I know plenty of guys that'll work for the right price, but there ain't no price high enough for most of them to go running into their own deaths." His beefy arms crossed over his chest as he too waited for their reinforcements to arrive.

They didn't speak again as the two other vehicles came rolling up to the station. Three men climbed from the pickup that had seen better years and a smaller two from a grey Chevy Impala that, for all intents and purposes, looked like an unmarked police car.

"Who's the woman?" The biggest of the newcomers inquired gruffly, already pulling Epps into one of those classic one-armed man hugs. It was always amusing to see men greet each other. All flexing muscles and back slapping. They hated to appear sentimental and girly even amongst their friends.

"This is Sam. She is… _was_ the Liaison and Ambassador for the Autobots. She's been around since day one in Mission City." A glint of respect bloomed in some of the men's eyes at that. She hoped they hadn't thought she was a prissy-footing little girl just along for the ride, but she had to admit that it was rare to see a woman her age willingly involved in something as extreme as alien warfare. There were very few women soldiers in N.E.S.T..

"Sam, this is Hardcore Eddie." Epps gestured towards the titan of a man who wore scars like a second skin. The next man was almost as large as Eddie, but not quite. "Tiny is over there next to the Puerto Rican man, Stackhouse. Shit, Rakishi, I didn't think you'd come."

"Nothing else to do," a raven-haired Asian man snorted, swinging himself back into the seat of the Impala. He obviously wasn't one for tedious introductions.

"And last is the brooding bastard, Ames. He used to be in a special task force in Cairo. Not someone you want to mess with." Epps finalized the greeting by turning back towards the driver's seat of his own car. Sam hefted herself off the hood, her body feeling older than time itself. "Let's move. We're wasting valuable time. Sunrise is right around the corner and we need to be at the edge of the city before we're too easily spotted."

Taking one final look at the bland, unabashedly average scenery, the blonde eased herself into the mustang, carefully tucking her braid up and high to pin it close to her scalp. It would be heavy, but where they were going she would need to keep it out of her way.

Whether H.G. Wells had predicted so or not, his cult classic of _War of the Worlds_ had come to be a reality and there was a very real possibility that the human race would not be able to survive the final stand.

* * *

There was a flashback of sorts that she underwent as they coasted up I-65 into Chicago. Eight years ago Bumblebee, before she had even known that was his name, had deposited she and Mike off in a darkened cemetery to await the arrival of the other Autobots. It had been a blustery cold night and they'd been two kids half out of their minds with worry for what was to come. There had been no sounds there besides the whistling wind and chirping katydids.

Chicago had been turned into its own rotting graveyard.

She could see the warships, the great battle cruisers, coasting in the sky like darkly coated weather balloons. The skyline was butchered. Buildings were either missing or deformed, half of their mass crumbled at their foundations. In the distance, very few choked off screams of misery echoed hauntingly. Whorls of machinery thundered through the cavernous holes left by the marauding Horde.

Epps pulled over and the others followed suit. Sam slipped from the relatively 'safe' confines of the vehicle and stood in the early morning air. Smoke. The smell of smoke and oil burned in her nostrils. Ashes blew towards her on the breeze, some leaving sooty tracks against her cheeks.

There was a hazy glow around the city, courtesy of the pillars Vector Prime had elevated to the highest peak to charge safely away from prying human hands. They had the power on their own to create small jump portals, such as from the moon to Earth's surface, but they needed to be anchored to the planet and granted a consistent fuel source such as the Sun's rays in order to do as the disgraced Prime intended for it to do.

She could see how so many could have been fooled by its beauty. Had she not known its cause she might have wondered at its splendor.

"The readouts show no abnormal spikes in radiation," Stackhouse grumbled as he fiddled with his meter. His face was pensive as he looked forward and then back down. "The glow isn't…"

"It's from the pillars," she explained curtly, not bothering to turn back towards the men to address them. "They've created a kind of canopy over the city. A bubble. When nothing moves in and out of the portal it's created, it just amplifies and builds power since it's not being expended. Five hours, six on the offshoot, and there'll be enough power here and in the others around the world to break a rift in time and space."

"A rift?" Rakishi mumbled, coming to stand beside her. He looked where she looked as though he could see as she saw.

"Vector Prime is using this planet as an anchor to pull Cybertron through to our solar system."

"But that's suicide!" Hardcore Eddie shouted, his brown eyes burning with anger. "He's going to destroy everyone and everything! Look what the moon does to the tides and that's just a glorified rock caught in our gravitational pull."

"He is mad," she agreed without repentance. "He was mad when he first made his allegiance with Megatron. He's a megalomaniac. He believes that he's saving his world as Primus ordained him to do and he will slay anyone that stands in his way. Guiltless or otherwise."

"Just what the Earth needs…another zealot." Epps took up position on her other side. The expression he wore warned her that she would not like the words he was about to speak. "We can't go into that, Sam. I'm sorry. I don't know what I thought it would be, but we can't go in there."

"That's where you're wrong." She raised her left hand and settled it onto his shoulder. A tender smile rose upon her lips. "I can go…and I will. Thanks for the ride, Epps."

"Sam, no!" But she was already running, her dancer's legs carrying her surely and swiftly towards the city. The five men cried out after her, their footfalls heavier than her own. She paid them no heed, instead vaulting over obstacles as though they were mere stepping stones. For the first time since waking, her heart lifted a fraction and adrenaline kicked in.

From behind, in between peals of grunted curses, Ames yelled; "incoming!"

Her feet skidded in dirt and rubble as a Fighter sailed around the next block, his double-barreled plasma cannons aimed in her general direction. First her ass and then her back collided with the ground as she switched gears from all-ahead-full to tuck-tail-and-run. Air burst from her chest painfully as she struck a stray brick wrong. She could all but hear the crack in one of her ribs as it happened.

The ground spit and sizzled as the cannons open fired – geysers of alien design. Her knee-jerk reaction was to cover her face and that's what she did. There was no time to rise and flee. There was no direction to move as she had landed hard between two overturned garbage trucks. She had only enough room to cower.

Her terrified wail ceased abruptly as wind whistled over her head, heat emanating from it, and a teeth-rattling explosion came from the direction of the Fighter. With wide eyes she watched the Fighter and its pilot lose all control and spin rapidly in the air, still in a forward motion.

Unfortunate as it was, that forward motion kept the thrice-damned jet on a collision course with her body. Any abortive attempt she might have made was snatched from her shaking fingers as she was plucked up from her right and jettisoned to her left, dozens of feet away from where the Fighter was doomed to crash.

"Who?" She whispered out loud, her eyes boggling to see a recently familiar face crouched above her. "Soundwave!"

:: My Precious One. :: The Communications Officer and ex-General purred down to where he clutched her in his two clawed servos. His face dropped lower until he could nuzzle his jagged cheekplate into her shuddering body.

"You're supposed to be keeping an eye on Megatron and Vector Prime!" She accused, beating his denta and nasal bridge with her fists recklessly. Irritation burned in her gut when mirth tickled over his line and lightened her own sour disposition against her will.

"Fuck! Optimus?!" Epps' voice carried to her on the wind as heavy treds drew near to where she lay so securely in the Decepticon's grasp. One of said 'Con's digits caressed her lovingly when she didn't actively attempt to kick it away from her.

"Hey hey _hey_ , waaaaiiiiit a damned minute! You're supposed to be dead!" Hardcore Eddie screeched in a narrowly girly way.

"Not hardly, fleshling," Ironhide grumbled, backhanding the 'Con holding her 'gently' so that he could get a better view of her. Relief crushed the brutish 'Bot when he saw that she wasn't unduly harmed, though Soundwave kicked the mech in his abdominals in retaliation for having touched his frame. The black mech stumbled away in shock. "That plan of yours was difficult for my tanks to process, Sweetspark. We will _not_ be doing that again."

"Plan?!" Now Epps was the one shrieking. "For the love of God, would somebody _please_ let me know what's going on here? You guys died!"

"You have a lot to learn about us, Sergeant." Ratchet shouldered the Weapon's Specialist out of his way, but could not dislodge her from Soundwave. The 'Con held onto her possessively, his optics darkening to burgundy as his covetous anger spiked.

"Do not attempt to take Her from me, Autobot." It was more of a promise than a warning. That one claw never ceased to stroke her, but she could hear pieces of his armor shifting, readying for a battle that none of them should be fighting.

As the two stood off against each other, Optimus explained for the other humans. For her part, she was reaching out through the bonds to sooth the two mechs who were at an impasse. She physically stretched out as though she were a child with 'gimme' hands towards Ratchet simply to calm the 'Con down and trick his protective processor into releasing her to a perceived friend.

"Samantha allied herself with Soundwave on the night of Vector Prime's betrayal. With his help, we were able to formulate a plan to deceive the Decepticons into believing we were no longer a threat and showing Earth's governing officials that our enemy will never stop at just one. It was, as you would call it, killing two birds with one stone."

Sam groaned as the 'Con cradling her pivoted so that she was further distanced from them medic. She felt like a teddy-bear caught in a tug-of-war between two combative children. It was her fervent hope that she didn't end up getting ripped in two.

"But Sam…she…you couldn't have faked that kind of pain!" Epps stood beneath her now, his arms crossed stubbornly. He was not in the least bit happy about what had just happened and his stance spoke volumes to that affect.

"I didn't fake it," she hissed at the 'Con when he didn't immediately release her to her own two feet. She reached inward and pulled at the Allspark's power, urging it out through her pores to jolt the Communications Officer. His optics blazed as he resisted the minor pain at first before relenting when she only notched the internal dial higher and higher. If nothing else, she was a persistent little human.

Returned to her own feet, though shadowed by the silver 'Con, she held herself gingerly to relieve the ache from the crack of her rib. "Squawktalk released an electrical shock to my nervous system as soon as Starscream struck the Xanthium's core. The pain was necessary as Soundwave wasn't the only one charged with spying. There were too many others that would have seen if I didn't have any reaction."

"So where'd they go if not into that ship?" Ames spoke up for the second time since meeting him. His dark face was pensive. "Why all the cloak and dagger shit?"

"The Matrix of Leadership had been in my possession for several days. It's a manifestation of the Allspark and can do some pretty nifty things – such as opening portals without an excess of discharge that couldn't be explained away by the ignition of an Energon core. They were only on the ship long enough to set a destination. An A.I. had the launch taken care of." She passed the man a sidelong look. "As for the smoke and daggers? What else was I to do? There were too many eyes watching to pull anyone else into the know and after the Xanthium's attack it was a moot point."

"Why in the fuck are we here, then?" Hardcore Eddie grumble, irate now. He gestured angrily towards the assembled Cybertronians. Not all of them were present in this one place, she knew. Others would be scoping out the city and trying to survey for the best point of entry. She could feel their bright spots out there amidst the black hole that the Horde left in Chicago with their presences.

Her brows furrowed when she felt tendrils of awareness grasping for her, some almost desperately. Their processors were shutting the action down and keeping them from making contact, but she knew that they felt her there. They wanted her. They yearned for her. There were hundreds of them in this city and over three-quarters of them were in desperate want of reconnecting with their Mother-power. They wanted to belong home again more than they needed their next breath, so to speak.

Maybe that was exactly what they needed…

"Are you even listening, kid?" Eddie stomped towards her with a hard face. She wouldn't have shrunk back from him even if Soundwave didn't stomp his left ped between them. Eddie threw up his arms in exasperation. "If you knew they were going to be here to help this whole time, why call out to us? We're going to _die_ here!"

"You die here or there, Eddie." She glared at the rest of them. "You had the option of not answering your phone when Epps called. You had the option of telling him to go jump off a bridge, staying at home with your families, and watching as the world as we know it is destroyed. Even if the Autobots are able to stop Vector Prime, do you really think there won't be a fallback for what he's done? You knew that going into this.

"Now, you have two choices. You can get back in your cars and go back home or you can come with us like you intended to do in the first place…only this time you'll have some Cybertronian muscle at your back. Your call."

Leaving them to make their own decisions without undue pressure from her, Sam moved herself towards the Fighter and the onlining being she could feel inside of its cockpit. Soundwave barked out a low-frequency rumbling growl reminiscent of an engine revving, but her catering to his mood swings wasn't on her to-do list.

"Leave 'im alone, Lass." Leadfoot chided her, attempting to cut her off from her present destination. "He's dangerous. Let us 'andle 'im."

"Step aside," she ordered the head of the Constructor trio. The upward hatch of the battered Fighter hissed as clutching purple servos, the digits somewhere between claw-like and rounded, gripped at the opening. The 'Con from within pulled himself upwards and out, thermal-blasters charged and aimed in their direction mounted on his dorsis, but peeking out over his shoulderplates. His visor flashed on and off in his struggling attempts to stay online.

"Stand down, please," she ordered the 'Con firmly, walking around the 'pudgy' 'Bot that had attempted to waylay her. She raised her hand, palm upward, in offering to the rattled purple Decepticon. She followed his line from the Allspark to him. It hadn't blackened with malevolence or decay. It was merely grey, tired and alone, waiting to be dusted off and used again. "Will you come?"

A questioning chirp popped from the 'Con's vocalizer followed by a stream of Cybertronian – a sub-dialect reminiscent of the poorer districts of an older Cybertron. She smiled at him, taking several more steps closer. By now she was scantly thirty feet away from the downed ship.

"Come to me," she urged him, tugging at his line. His whole frame jerked in surprise before he chittered excitedly. With new energy he scurried from the depths of the Fighter and rushed before her. The hand she upheld he pressed a digit into. The image of a newborn gripping its mother's finger flared in her mind, but in this case it was he that was the newborn and she the mother.

 _Vortex. His name is Vortex_.

Vortex warbled in a high-keening cry. His servos flexed jerkily as he restrained himself from gathering her up into his worshipful grasp. In return she shushed him, cooing verbally and through the newly formed bond. She snuffed out the urge to placate and sub-serve as gently as she could, not wanting to hurt him, but also not willing to be the alter he prayed upon. She was as fallible as he and she would not be hailed as some sort of supreme being.

She touched his facial plating as he had prostrated himself so low above her. She looked up into his visor earnestly, expressing her own needs to him non-verbally.

"Are you with us now? Are you with _me_?"

"Yes, Samantha," he spoke for the first time in English. She had a sense of his optics shuttering in rapture. "You lead. I follow."

"Very good," Sam praised, her heart a little lighter now.

"How'd she do that?" Tiny murmured more to himself than to anyone else. He eyeballed she and the 'Con with lighting hope. "Can you do that to others?"

"Yes," she replied instantly and without subterfuge. The big man assessed her words with all the accuracy of a scientist dissecting a bug under a microscope before he grinned cheekily.

"Well then, that's a whole other story. I'm game. The way I see it, if any of the big baddies come callin' we can just sick her on them!" He winked to let her know that he didn't really believe what he had just stated – at least not to the extent in which he'd phrased himself.

The other men, Epps included, took a few more minutes of contemplating before sighing and nodding their ascent. They were in.

"The Decepticons are turning Chicago into a fortress. They are trying to keep prying eyes out." Sideswipe rolled around them all with his brother, the two keeping their backs to the group so that they wouldn't befall a sneak attack by the Horde. "We need an aerial view."

As one, she and Vortex glanced towards the damaged Fighter.

"Wreckers? How long would it take you to fix that?"

"Give or take two and a half hours." Topspin replied automatically. There was temporary stillness before he accusingly vented, "you are not thinking of taking that piece of scrap metal into the sky!"

"You said you could fix it," she shot back.

"I meant Vortex." The two shot daggers at each other through their optics, red versus blue, and Sam understood not for the first time what it felt like for a mother to have two bickering children.

* * *

She felt like she was a little kid again sitting on her daddy's lap on the riding tractor as she leaned back into Vortex's abdominal plates with her head barely scraping the underside of his chassis. She couldn't see over the flight console sitting and the 'Con got physical whenever she attempted to stand.

"Not safe," he rumbled at her, pressing his right servo down and over her thighs to keep her pinned before returning back to the controls.

"I need to see, dammit!" Her body jolted when a holographic screen fizzled into existence before her, a replica of everything the mech would be able to see through the view-screen.

"We are nearing the building Vector Prime chose for anchoring the primary pillar. I will maintain our course as best I can without drawing undue attention." The Fighter rocked roughly as a nearby building was pointlessly struck by another Fighter's projectiles. Vortex didn't so much as flinch, but she frowned fiercely at the sight.

"All of this destruction is pointless."

"It is," the 'Con agreed readily, more stoic than he had been before when she'd Bonded with him. He'd broken character, which seemed more commonplace than not. Soundwave for instance was an entirely different mech when communicating with her compared to all others. "We do as we are ordered, however."

"Megatron is having you do this? Senselessly?"

"No. It is Vector Prime. He wishes to show that brute force will be used for any infraction by your human race and all others who oppose his will." He petted her on instinct, washing calm down through their line. "Lord Megatron…he has changed since The Fallen was destroyed. He is unlike I have ever known him, though older mechs than I say that he is returning to operating as he had in the earlier times of Cybertron."

Memories of his behavior in their shared dreams flashed in her mind's eye. He wasn't the deranged beast she had been introduced to in Mission City nor the one that had tortured her with the intent of making her his pet before Egypt. While he still called her 'Pet', she had the genuine impression that it was an endearment he used expressly for her. It was not derogatory in the slightest. Not anymore.

As they banked around one of the nearby buildings to Trump Tower, though not drawing so close as to draw notice, Vortex aimed the pivoting sensors of the Fighter towards the two gargantuan sentries atop the building. Vector Prime was as blasé as he'd ever been and, curiously, Megatron hung behind. She'd never in a million years peg Megatron as being second-class, but standing beside Vector he appeared sufficiently cowed.

Audio came through the cockpit. It was static-ridden, but understandable.

"The city is secure," Megatron rumbled in that growling voice of his she'd learned not to hate. She, guiltily, welcomed the steadiness and surety of it just as she adored Optimus's voice. There was something calming in each of their voices that eased all tension from her back knot by knot.

"Very soon the pillars will have obtained the necessary power levels to open the portal." The so-called Prime surveyed the torn-apart city with a cool eye. Ever the sneering jackal prancing over his eviscerated prey.

"Here is the victory I promised you vorns ago, Vector Prime. We will rebuild Cybertron together." Megatron was undoubtedly eager. His tone was lighter than she'd ever heard it before. He was exhilarated.

Vector Prime gave no warning of his impending movement. There was no physical tell and so all three of them were taken aback when the bigger mech whirled around and backhanded the Decepticon leader across his helm. Megatron's stance faltered, but Vector was still moving. The old mech's red servo clenched tightly onto the 'Con's throat. A vented whirl interspersed with a mechanical squeal erupted from Megatron at the abrupt hold.

Vector swung the silver titan's entire frame over the side of the building effortlessly. At that height, provided the mech couldn't obtain a foothold, he'd die if dropped. Thirteen-hundred feet at their present location was enough to kill even bigger mechs.

Megatron clawed at Vector Prime's wrist ineffectually. Madman though he was, Vector Prime was still one of the strongest Cybertronian combatants that she had even had the misfortune of meeting.

"I have deigned to work with you, youngling, so that our planet may survive. Never will I work _for_ you." He pulled the mech in closer so that they were nasal-plate to nasal-plate. Both of their optics glowed with heightened emotion. "You would do well to remember that."

Megatron was swung again, this time back onto the building. Vector Prime threw the massive mech into the walls that concealed the stairwell back inside Trump Tower causing the metal and stone to respectively bend and crack. The Decepticon leader pulled himself from the crater he'd made from his own body, a decidedly darkened look in his optics.

He had been bitch-slapped and he knew it.

Vortex steered them out of sight with a hearty snarl, his loyalty to his leader still lingering to a degree, when Vector Prime casually turned his optics their way. Megatron moved to stand beside his 'ally' once more, but it was a habitual behavior…and stubbornness. Starscream was notorious for backing down and taking the coward's way out, but the true 'Lord Megatron' would never bow down to another. He would not stand to be second-fiddle.

Whether he knew it or not, Vector Prime had hit the last nail into his own coffin by doing what he had just done to the Decepticon leader.

…And she wasn't fool enough to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

"Swing back to the others, Vortex," she urged her co-pilot. Her brows lowered in thought as she surveyed nearby buildings. Her fingers thumped against the holographic screen, its 'surface' suddenly dense enough to touch without her finger ghosting through, as she fanned through still-shots of the area surrounding the tower. One building was as horrifying as it was promising.

"I have a plan."

* * *

"That's your plan?!" Hardcore Eddie thundered, his expression textbook for thunderstruck. He pointed accusingly towards the precariously tilted building she intended for them to enter and ascend. "I have better odds of winning mousetrap against my nieces and nephews than we have of getting up that thing alive!"

"Why not another building?" Epps inserted the question semi-helpfully, frowning fiercely at the Galileo Building. Ironic that the man it was named for used to drop objects from the leaning tower of Pisa to test his theory of gravity. Now it, too, leaned. No, lean was too sober a comparison. This building was more crooked than a barrel of fish hooks.

As soon as they had landed she'd urged the others to hop into the Autobots' terrestrial forms. Soundwave had vacated the immediate area of where the Autobots had bunkered down while Vortex took her skyward, but she sensed he was near and primed for battle. He was no idle mech. Vortex, at her urging, had returned to the air in his Fighter. He would provide aerial cover for them along with Astrotrain and Jetfire, whom both clung to the outer reaches of the city. The two were attacking and downing ships, but they were diverting attention more than they were actively attempting a full assault.

They had moved as quickly as they dared to the Galileo Building, but it was imperative that they not be seen. The Wreckers had handed off a single-shot missile to her when they arrived at the building before hurrying off in another direction. The missile was something they had worked on with Wheeljack. That partnership was the only reason she carried the deadly assault weapon now. Wheeljack's inventions were notorious for being unstable and self-detonating.

The missile-launcher was slightly smaller than the Big Boar she'd fired only two days prior, but packed a hell of a lot stronger punch. The missile inside could be shot a staggering distance of thirteen city blocks and maintain steady accuracy and speed. After that the concussion would be less effective and the trajectory could be altered more easily. A strap had been fitted to the thing which she slung between her breasts so that the launcher was laid across her back.

The others fled as soon as their human cargo had dismounted. She had briefed them all using private comms, but the building she'd chosen for their sniper-point was not what they had imagined it to be. The 'Bots knew, having received a visual from Vortex, but even though they disliked it they also knew not to question her. There was no doubt that they would fight for her and even against her if they thought that there was another way to achieve their ends without endangering her, but on matters where she had a clear foothold they submitted to her authority.

 _Just barely_ , she thought as discord thrummed through the bonds. There wasn't a single one of them that wasn't as nerved up as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

"Look, I already explained this. We can't get a clear shot at the control pillar from the ground and we're more likely to be found out if we go into one of the other buildings that are still standing. They're not going to look for us here simply because the human preservation instinct keeps us away from unsound structures."

"S'not stopping us, apparently," Tiny muttered, fisting his beefy hands several times in agitation.

"Look, if we try and use Vortex's Fighter we're going to get shot out of the sky quicker than you can blink. The way I see it this is the most inconspicuous spot I can think of. Of anyone has any better ideas speak now before the rest of our allies leave to distract the Horde."

By that point all of the Autobots with the exception of Bumblebee and Optimus had fled to serve as decoys. They, too, would leave them to do what they had to in order to destroy the pillar, but only after they had retreated into the severely leaning building. Already she could hear sporadic gunfire peaking in the distance.

No one spoke up.

"Then let's get moving." Before they could push through the cracked glass doors, however, a UAV spiraled out of the sky, one of its wings smoking from a sidelong hit from one of the enemy forces. It skidded across the asphalt leaving a metallic smear across the blackened surface.

"Hey, that's one of N.E.S.T.'s." Epps darted up beside the UAV and began to fiddle with some of the wires. His grimace was real when it continued to spit sparks at him. "Shit. They're watching us, but we have no way to communicate with them."

"We don't need to," she inserted, gently urging the dark-skinned man away from the drone. She looked at the other men and spoke sternly, "I'm putting my trust in you that you'll keep your mouth shut about what you're about to see."

With the two 'Bots keeping watch for incoming hostiles, Sam set her hands onto the main hub of the UAV. She used the Allspark's power to repair the minor damage to the wing, human metal shifting as though it were sentient, and then pushed through the networking software. Pain swirled in her guts to use the Allspark's power even on something so small when, up until that point, she'd been concentrating it on amplifying the intrinsic abilities of the nanites in her bloodstream. That small shift in focus had cost her greatly.

:: Blurr? :: Pain equivalent to a pickaxe slicing through her skull struck at using the comms. There was an affirmative response to her hail and so she continued. :: Can you connect to the other UAV's from the one I have in my possession? I can't do it myself. I need you to get every one of them airborne in this city broadcasting what they film across the world. If we survive this, the other humans need to see that not every Cybertronian is aiming to destroy this world. Scramble the background so the Decepticons don't get a visual queue as to where I am right now. ::

:: I will do so immediately. :: There was a pause in which she thought she might find relief, but Blurr spoke again in a grudgingly agreeable voice. Despite its softness, red splotches of agonized color bloomed like blood splatters in her skull. :: Soundwave has offered assistance in hacking the grids. His aid is required in breaking through the firewalls he established that inhibit electrical recordings throughout this city. ::

The UAV began to elevate under her shaking hands, the camera to its front blinking several times as it began to initiate one of its primary functions. She felt a wetness trickle from her nose and used the back of her hand to brush it away. Blood stained her skin.

 _Shit_.

:: Tally of fourteen UAVs connected and reprogrammed throughout Chicago. Filming to commence broadcast in three seconds…two seconds…one second. ::

Sam stood before the camera as proudly as she could. She straightened her spine despite the pain it caused her in her abdomen and to her cracked rib, and set her shoulders back. She didn't look the least bit presentable with her disheveled clothing and white-out-eye, she was sure, but she would address the humans watching around the globe as the Ambassador she was. She was a fighter. She was the Cybertronian Allspark and belonging now to both races and neither. It was time for her to open the shutters and make everyone look out past their own selfish, sheltered lives.

"My name is Samantha Jane Witwicky," she told the people of Earth, hearing even as she said it her voice echoing from the few operational televisions in nearby businesses and storefronts. "Many of you have seen me before in prior years revolving around the destruction of the USS Lincoln. I have been working alongside the Autobots, a faction of the alien race of Cybertronians that have fought against those that laid siege to Chicago. I tell you now, while I still have breath in my body, that I will do everything in my power to right the wrongs done this day. We will fight for this planet and all of Her people until all are one or we will die trying.

"Take heed, though, that not everything is as it seems. Not all who wander are lost. A man's heart has the capabilities of growing, changing, and adapting. I beg of you, should we succeed this day, not to shut out those that seek redemption. We are One."

With that final thought she pumped up the juice, spiking Allspark power into the UAV until it altered shape once more. Its outer shell turned black and metal jettisoned out to make it look distinctly sharper. It rocketed into the sky and away, a hybrid propulsion system making it whistle through the air at high speeds. It would swing around the city, constantly communicating with the other UAVs, and monitor what happened from that point forward. If they could stay out of the way of the Horde and avoid destruction they would show the world what they were all fighting for, human _and_ alien.

"Sam," Epps whispered over her shoulder. While the others were watching the metamorphosed UAV dart out of sight, the Major was focused intently on her. "Sam, you're not looking good right now."

:: Sweetspark? :: Was Optimus's tentative call in her head.

She couldn't control herself after that. She clenched her teeth to help redirect her pain from the comm-contact into anger. She whirled on the two mechs, stumbling as she did so. Epps caught her on reflex.

"Stop. Stop stop _stop_!" She struggled out of Epps's arms and felt her back thump against the glass door. Worry and apprehension bombarded her through the bonds. 'Bee even leaned forward as though to pick her up. She shook her head. "Go! You need to leave right now. The longer you both stand here the more likely you are to draw attention."

They weren't happy with the command. She felt it down to her bones. She wouldn't renege on what she'd said, though. She knew she'd falter and cave under their scrutiny and so she slipped into the building instead.

There was a finite amount of time to do what needed to be done with the Earth and Cybertron alike were to be saved.


	10. Chapter 10: House of Cards

**Chapter Ten: House of Cards**

Nursery rhymes weren't typically the types of things anyone would expect to go through a person's mind while ascending hundreds of steps to the top of a building. Of course, it would become a little more logical, if not blasphemous, when said building was angled at a precarious twenty-degrees or so and the rhyme was 'London Bridges'.

The song, uncontrollable by her, was repeating on an endless loop in Samantha's head.

She was thankful that she hadn't begun to verbalize her thoughts otherwise she might have found herself bodily thrown back down the way they had come.

The stairwell had been easily traversable at first. Then at around the fifteenth floor the split began and the stairs were at a highly uncomfortable tilt. They had been forced to climb to the outside of the steps, clinging to the railing, where the staircases pinched awkwardly together at that point. That had been a nerve-wracking experience in and of itself. Afterwards they returned to the steps themselves, but still needed to retain a fierce grip on the rails. Sam had the lead while Epps took flank. They climbed one-by-one up the crooked stairwell.

 _The ants go marching one-by-one; hurrah, hurrah…_

 _Oh for Heaven's sake!_ She chided herself harshly.

It was the nerves, she told herself. As brave as she acted and as strong as she pretended to be, it was all an act to keep the others going. She was scared spitless and entirely unsure of what the outcome of this most recent 'destroy Earth' plot was going to be. All she knew was that she couldn't quit. She had to keep going and if she could give others a bit of hope, perhaps bolster their spirits, then she was bound and determined to do just that.

Still, the nursery rhymes echoed monotonously in her mind and was driving her half out of it at the same time.

She was also in a great deal of pain. She blocked it off as best as she could from the Cybertronians as she could, but it was a concentrated effort on her part to do so and that focus could have been better spent elsewhere. No, _better_ wasn't an accurate word. She was doing what she needed to do in order for them to have a chance in this endeavor, but she also knew that if she didn't have to focus on blocking them from her pain she'd have been able to plan their next move or even think of a way to get them to the second part of the plan with a higher probability of success!

Her back screamed at her where the cracked rib lay underneath undoubtedly bruised skin and her stomach. Oh, she could have swallowed a stick of dynamite and had it detonate in her guts with less pain than what she was feeling by that point. It was an exaggeration, but not by much. Her head was also pounding from having utilized the comms so actively. Despite the changes the nanites had made to her organic body and the reinforced strength they gave to her organs, blood, and bone, she was still primarily organic in nature. The electrical impulses caused by utilizing the comms as a primary source of communication was like a whip lashing. The data thrashed from one neuron to another, striking at her pain receptors in the process.

 _Fuck_ , she hissed in the sanctity of her own mind.

She stuttered to a halt several feet away from the mid-way point of the next rise, which also happened to be the half of the available steps that gave her the most problems with their downward-facing landings. One of the nearby control boxes, what had at one point in time been an emergency box, was spitting fumes and sparks better than any medieval dragon. Most of the steps were cracked and a live-cable whipped back and forth a hair's breadth above the steps. It reminded her eerily of her parent's neighbor's cat's – so many possessive pronouns! – tail flicking in agitation as he watched mice attempt to scurry their way into his domain.

If they attempted to get past that lashing wire they would have a lot worse pains to deal with than some measly cat-scratches.

"So," Tiny huffed from over her shoulder, "guess we're not going _that_ way."

Ames tapped one of the placard's beside the door on the landing. "Made it to thirty-eight."

"It'll have to do." She muttered, swinging herself towards the door and clenching firmly onto the railing to keep from tipping back in the direction they had come. Falling down the stairs was a miserable affair, but falling down over thirty flights of stairs with said stairs being at an angle only made a miserable situation turn downright tragic.

"Keep your eyes peeled for another stairwell. Building this size can't have just one." Epps instructed from the caboose of their little mercenary train. His dark hands were considerably paler as he white-knuckled his grip on the railing beside him. The building had shaken…again. "We'll climb higher if we need to."

"Da-fuck," Eddie snapped from his central position. "I'm just ready to get my ass outta this fun-house."

"Fun-house?" Rakishi fired back with an elegantly raised eyebrow. The man didn't look the least bit ruffled by their circumstances. Idly she surmised he must be descended from circus folk and aerial acrobats. Who else could be so unflappable in the cockeyed building. "I would call it the Tower of Terror myself."

The door pushed open with a bit more heft than she was expecting, but the opposite side of the portal clued her in aptly as to why that was. They had been climbing the stairwell on the side of the building in which the tilt pointed. She imagined it like putting two rectangular cuboids together with only one side-corner touching. They were on the 'touching' side. That put the floor, when they exited the stairwell, at a steep angle upwards.

Wheeled chairs had long-since coasted across the tiled floor to crash against the tastefully-done brick wall of the stairwell and the reinforced glass surrounding the building on all sides. Suicide-proof. Most buildings used a tempered glass so that individuals couldn't throw themselves out as well as making the building more structurally sound. Some desks had slid as well, but many of them were fixed to the floors with only the cubicle walls having been displaced.

There was a framed picture near to her right foot. It showed a smiling family, a blissfully happy looking couple with three children that were perfect, cherubic-faced copies of their elders. The background could have been Lake Michigan or any other body of water for the vague detail it provided to the viewer, but of course the picture wasn't taken for the scenery. It had been taken to show the love of the family.

Where were they now? Had they managed to flee the city before Sentinel unleashed the Horde? Perhaps they had been on vacation to the water-mass in the picture and weren't even in the city? Were they slaughtered like so many other innocents?

She couldn't think about it. If she did, she'd just crumple up into a ball and cry.

There was time for that when and if they escaped this fiasco alive.

"Should have brought climbing gear," she murmured to herself even as she began to awkwardly make her way up the tilted floor towards the wall of windows opposite them. That way would lead them to a direct view of the Trump Tower.

"Or suction cups. Hey, wouldn't that be sweet?" Eddie, she guessed, liked to chitter to keep his mind off of more serious matters that he didn't wish to contemplate too deeply. It was a coping mechanism. "Think your Autobot friends could make me a pair of suction cup glove things so I can climb walls like Spiderman?"

She chuckled a little even as her sneaker squeaked and slipped on a stretch of the tile. Reflexively she reached out for an anchor only to skim her fingers across a potted fern. The plant clattered and tipped, rolling unerringly down the sloping ground before crashing loudly against the glass behind them.

"Easy," Rob chided her with a cautioning look in his eyes.

He'd been one of the few within the circle of Autobots back in the Egyptian desert when she'd died. The reaction of the mechs had not been a pleasant one to endure. While they hadn't shown violence, it had been a very near thing. Their connection to her, to their Allspark, had severed with her death and she'd unconsciously taken their sanity with her. No, she'd taken more than that. Their sentience, their individuality, had been wiped away like marker from a dry-erase board. They were on the cusp of reverting to their basic programming instilled in them by their creators…total annihilation.

Then she'd been revived.

Rob and Lennox, she knew, were the most affected by what they had seen. The two didn't know the full truth of who and what she was, but they weren't incompetent men. They had put two and two together and realized that without her the Autobots would be as dangerous – if not more-so – as the Decepticons that constantly plagued them.

If she fell here and now…if she died again…

There would be nowhere safe.

"I'm sure Wheeljack would be more than happy to jimmy rig something for you." She replied to Hardcore Eddie's earlier question, shaking off the jittery feeling almost tripping had given her.

"Not Wheeljack," Epps warned the other man, a smirk now in his voice. "Trust me, Eddie, you want someone else to make those. Wheeljack's inventions aren't well known for their…reliability."

"But ain't that cannon on her back something he made?" Tiny jerked a thumb towards the glorified rifle on her back. "Are we going to sneeze and have the whole damned thing blow up on us?"

"Not hardly," she retorted swiftly and with easy calm. For all of his accidents and missteps, Wheeljack would never give her a piece of equipment that wasn't a hundred and ten percent safe for her use. Not to mention that he wasn't the only one working on the weapon. "'Jack's a brilliant mech. He was built very sturdy, too, so that he has a fallback for when his inventions do get away from him. He and the others wouldn't have handed this beast over without assuring that it worked and wouldn't backfire on us."

 _Her_. They wouldn't risk _her_.

They drew upon the windows just as the building shuddered heavily with the slow passing of one of the cruising carrier ships. Stackhouse hollered as he slipped and began to slide back the way they'd come. He snatched at one of the load-bearing support columns and braced himself there. His breaths panted in and out rapidly as he struggled to pull together his composure.

"This thing's gonna topple!" Eddie seemed to be accusing her as he sneered in her direction once the shaking had subsided.

"Not yet it's not," she groused back.

The Trump Tower was across from them and while the angle wasn't entirely desirable, the shot would be doable. Two of the men began to mutter a complaint as she worked the rifle off of her shoulders, but Epps drew up behind her in a firm show of support.

"Don't even try and bitch, boys. I've never worked with a better shot in my life than Sam here. Girl coulda made a living being a sniper if she really wanted to…and a damned good living, too."

"And you chose being the spokesperson for an alien race of giant robots because?" Tiny wisecracked from her opposite side, clearly surveying the shot.

"Because they're my friends." Her heart smiled and she reached out to them all though their fiercely glowing lines. The feeling of Home bombarded them all. It warmed her down to her very core. "They're my family."

She was attempting to brace the launcher on a nearby industrial table when Rakishi hissed behind them. "Ship! Hide yourselves."

Automatically she was ducking down behind the metal and wood table, an amalgamation of weathered materials that looked like something modeled for a Viking-themed office, and clutching the rifle to her chest. Her feet she braced against a broken rift in the flooring so that she wouldn't find herself coasting downward and into view of the passing Fighter.

She didn't reach out in a noticeable way through the frayed lines that had at one point in time thrummed with life between the Cybertronians and the Allspark, but she could sense that this nearest mech wasn't salvageable. His Spark had grown dark and cold much as Lazerbeak's had. There was no source of light anywhere within him. There was no redemption possible for this mech and therefore there was no way for her to draw him back to the Allspark if they needed to.

 _Dammit_.

The Fighter, either having caught their movements or was just causing destruction because he found it enjoyable to do so, began shooting off rounds into the building. Glass shattered above and behind her on their level as well as several above and below. She clutched the rifle like a teddybear, burying her face into her chest so that none of the falling glass would scratch her face or eyes. The shots, due to the angle of the building, tended to sail over the top corner of the desk she cowered behind instead of directly through it and into her.

She realized with one of those glancing blows that their angle had steepened almost immediately after the Cruiser had flown by them. The twenty-plus degrees they had been at before had shifted closer to mid-thirties.

That did not bode well for them at all.

"There's a stairwell over there!" Stackhouse gestured wildly towards a door roughly fifty feet from where they hid. He jerked his hand back when a superheated cartridge whizzed mere inches by his outstretched arm. "We gotta get off this floor."

They scurried towards the door like the good little ants they were, ducking behind any solid surface until the 'Con had either exhausted his ammo – unlikely – or grown bored of turning the building into Swiss cheese. After that they still attempted to conceal themselves behind any available inanimate object capable of hiding a human body simply for the reason that the Decepticon flying the Fighter was entirely capable of ejecting from his craft to charge them himself.

It was Tiny that, inevitably and entirely accidently, made that horrifying thought flash into breathing existence.

The Decepticon, his soul as cold and uncompromising as an arctic glacier, jettisoned from the Fighter with no more than a hiss of hydraulics and a faint popping sound. He was Beachbreak's size, roughly eight-feet large. His obsidian armor was chipped, worn, and dull. His blazing red optics glared right through them all once he'd pulled himself from his tuck-n-roll.

The cannon he pointed their way was primed.

"This can't be happenin'," Stackhouse muttered as a shot was fired off in his direction, just missing his back by several inches.

Epps fired off the mk47 he had been packing with him almost from the start. The rounds pinged mostly harmlessly off of the brute's body, but two struck true in his right optic and a primary fuel-hose just above the protective plating of his neck, yet below the jagged cut of his jaw.

The 'Con screeched in unholy rage, fumbling backwards and reaching up to staunch the flow of vital fluid from what was essentially one of his primary arteries. Viscous clear fluid pumped from between his clawed digits as his helm lulled against his control.

She was just swinging herself through the doorway several of the other men had pelted through when the dark mech raised his free servo deliberately and gave Epps the one-fingered salute. The dark-skinned man gasped like a landed fish, his mouth opening and closing like he couldn't believe what he had seen and hadn't the slightest clue on how to move forward.

She knew.

"Oh, come on!" She yanked at the collar of his jacket and urged him to proceed her up the steps. Her hand she snuck around his belt to snatch up the grenade she had seen him snap onto himself when they left the 'normal' cars behind.

Sam allowed the tiniest bit of Allspark power to leach into the grenade so that it would draw to his core like a magnet pulled to metal. When she snapped the pin out and set it to soaring in his direction, she could almost read the incredulity on his stagnant metallic face. That disbelief morphed into horror, however, when he realized that the fist-sized bomb was arrowing directly for his face no matter which direction he moved.

She'd never seen a Cybertronian backpedal like he did before. Like most of his kind, when the probability of destruction was immediately imminent, they either remained motionless to make the end swifter or charged in order to make a final effort of completing whatever task they were mandated with before offlining for good.

The mech chirred and shrieked as the grenade connected with his broken optic. The fist-sized explosive detonated almost on contact. The explosion rocked his frame back even as his helm and half of his chassis fractured into thousands of pieces.

His life force snuffed out in a shudder of light from his Spark. The pain was there for her when that line snapped, but it wasn't debilitating. It was like Lazerbeak had been. She clutched at her chest, hurting for the loss of a 'child'. The Allspark's child. _Her_ child.

:: _Daughter of Mine. Soon, soon you will have them returned to you._ ::

 _Get out!_ She screamed in her own head. She beat her fists against her temples to dispel the voice of the Other from her mind bodily. _Get out of my head!_

A hand landed heavily on her shoulder and she was pulled quite abruptly up the skewed stairwell.

Whatever time they had to work with now was borrowed at best.

Their enemies would be looking for the missing pilot.

They had just reached the sixty-fifth floor when a shuddering, Earth-quaking explosion rocked the building from the inside. They all shouted, some with profanity and some with fear, as the stairs heaved and buckled underneath them. Sam had only a moment's presence of mind to lunge for the open doorway and latch onto the lower jam of the entryway as the landing beneath her dropped away.

A gasp of pain burst from her throat, choked though it was, from the abrupt impact. Her cracked rib, though located to her back and not her front, cried for retribution. Her back demanded the rest of her to suffer for jarring it so.

The others had latched onto the protrusions in the walls as well as other doorways, but Ames had been just ahead of her. It had been him that had opened the door she now clung so desperately to, her sneakers scrabbling for purchase on the stone-façade wall. Her arms shook as muscles worked to not only keep her from descending down the ruined shaft, but also to flex so that she might pull herself up into the office space before her.

Ames' petrified holler heralded a horrifying sight she hoped never to see again.

The man, a self-proclaimed loner, had misstepped upon hurtling through the doorway. The explosion from inside – and she had a sneaking suspicion that it was a delayed self-destruct mechanism built into the deceased 'Con – had shaken the building into falling more. The floors had been dangerously tilted before, but now angled at least forty-five degrees. There was no way for the man to gain footing, especially when it appeared that the sprinkler systems had gone off on this floor at some point and the linoleum was slick with water.

Ames rocketed down the floor, his two-hundred-plus body only gaining momentum with nothing for him to catch himself on. The windows below had cracked and been broken in the building's half-collapse. Ames kept screaming as he sailed through and out the void space. Her eyes watered as they locked onto the mortal terror etched onto his too-young face before he disappeared from sight.

She'd never forget the look in his eyes.

She swallowed a sob.

"Kid, get your fat ass up through that doorway before I can't hold on here anymore." Hardcore Eddie, who was just beneath her, pushed one of his ham-sized hands up under one of her searching feet. He grunted as she used his offered support to full advantage to aid her up over the lip completely. He had to have heard Ames fall and known that the man was past saving, but like most men in his chosen profession he brushed the death off until it could be dealt with later. There was no room on missions to mourn for those that gave their lives. Distraction was an unwanted and dangerous thing to fall prey to.

They worked themselves one by one – _hurrah, hurrah_ – through the door. While each man helped the next she crawled haphazardly to the skyward-facing wall beside them. She was forced to hook the mounted legs of her missile/rifle over the shattered lip of what had once been a pristinely clear window pane to both keep her balance as well as to anchor for their last chance of a shot at the control pillar.

The higher elevation took them a bit farther away from the target, but it also cleared the range. There was nothing in the way of her shot this time. No other glass walls or broken buildings. No antennae or weather vanes.

"Sam, there's gotta be a better…" Rakishi murmured as he crawled up beside her only to be cut off by a grinding roar in the distance. Sam's head turned so that she could look towards the lower windows, though she admittedly couldn't see the streets below at her angle.

"What was that?" Stackhouse cracked out with wide eyes.

There was an impact to the building from low and then the whole thing began to shake. She felt like a bottle of soda being shaken in a child's hands. The rifle rattled as she attempted to keep it steady against the metal window frame.

The time was now or never.

The missile-launcher jangled in her hands even as she and Rakishi tried to keep it still. She could see Vector Prime lording over the city he had brought to ruin, his frame closer to her than the primary pillar. She inwardly begged to all the Deities of the Universe that he would step between she and the pillar and she could kill two birds with one stone. She would rejoice in cracking the shot straight through his worthless Spark and back out again into the core of the pillar.

Megatron was almost around the opposite corner of the building and was out-and-out glaring at the disgraced Prime. After the sound bashing he'd received he was no doubt fuming and plotting his vengeance. _V for Vendetta_ had nothing on the former Lord High Protector.

Then something strange happened.

Megatron looked clear past the aged Autobot and straight at her. She _knew_ he was looking at her. She could feel his unwavering gaze down to her bones. An awareness of him that she'd harbored since Egypt sparked in her mind – and her heart – and she felt first surprise followed by giddy, almost-sadistic pleasure. She had no bond with him other than the old and tattered one he'd once held with the Allspark, but she could sense his approval in her.

Through the scope she watched him nod his helm once at her before turning a 'blind eye' to what she was doing. He was alight with mischief, strategically stepping completely out of range of her shot…all without speaking a word to Vector Prime.

She pulled the trigger at the exact moment that the tenterhooks the upper half of the building they took refuge in snapped. The sudden descent of the already precariously tilted building made her carefully charted shot angle off.

The shot missed the anchoring pillar by nearly a block, the alien-metal cartridge whistling off and into the hull of a passing Cruiser.

The ship didn't so much as shudder as it exploded outright, the shot striking either a fuel cell or power core.

:: _New plan!_ :: She cried through the unsecured comms, screaming verbally as the upper levels crashed against a nearby building and finding support there, leaving the one she and the others were on floating over open air.

They were also falling.

There was a sense of weightlessness as she dropped through the air. She had been bounced away from the floor, but was still feet away from the ceiling. Both could have been considered walls now that they were ninety-degrees from what had only the day before been a fully vertical tower.

She scrabbled for anything and everything, finding nothing in the process besides her own heaving stomach. Dread cascaded through her end of the bond and slammed against the others. She felt their answering horror and, oddly enough, some of their hurried resolves. Distantly she caught echoes of confused petrification. All of the others that she felt in the city, all of the Horde still in want of coming Home to the Allspark, felt salvation ripping bloodily out of their servos as her final death rushed up to meet her.

:: _**NO!**_ ::

As she tumbled out of the building through the air, ass-over-tea kettle, she could see a Driller wound around the building like an anaconda around a swiftly strangled beast. Its maw was a series of jagged denta meant once upon a time to dig through both rock and metal in search of precious metals and Energon pools. Shockwave, for the fleeting glance she was granted, was caught on the ground beside the Galileo sign. He'd been the one to order the Driller to bring the building down with the humans in it, but her burst of emotion broadcasted so openly had undoubtedly sent him off-kilter.

Inwardly, she reached outward for anything. She pulled for every shred of knowledge the Allspark could provide her. She couldn't warp herself for the simple fact that she was falling through open air and her momentum would carry through to wherever she emerged from. She would still strike any surface with great force, even if she could bring herself out over water, and the collision would more than likely shatter her bones. She was also disoriented by the fall and warping without a clear thought got wiser and stronger beings killed in the past. There was no undoing bringing yourself into being in the unyielding confines of solid rock.

Samantha felt herself crying.

…And just like that the knowledge struck.

Time froze on itself.

The braided blonde struggled through the mass of unfulfilled bonds. She beat several dozen aside and collided with three in particular, ancient knowledge fueling her in her desperate need. Seekers, even the newer models, were a breed of flyers of an entirely different design. They were manufactured to be stronger and more cunning. Abnormally lethal. They were always meant to be some of the best soldiers, literal living weapons, and had built-in abilities that other Cybertronians did not. Like Jetfire's transpatial warping capabilities.

Then there was a lesser-known, seldom-used subroutine programmed into them.

The Protectorate.

Her only recourse was to activate the long-dormant routine inside the three mechs, knowing that Jetfire and Optimus were combined and in the process of fighting off a scourge of 'Cons in order to get to her side. The combined automaton wouldn't be fast enough to save them from ending in the same messy way as Ames had.

The three Seekers shuddered with the sudden awareness of her, the bond forcing itself upon them. She dug deeper, tunneling her way past the memories they rained down upon her, and brutally pummeled one clear, unfaltering thought into their processors.

She was their _Sweetspark_ …their _sparkling_ …their _Allspark_ …and she was in _need_.

She was _scared_.

Their focus shifted abruptly enough that had they been human they'd have suffered from severe whiplash. All other orders and mandates were smothered under the reignited Protectorate. It wouldn't matter if they were faced with annihilation. No torture could derail them. Every synapsis that fired would be for her and _only_ for her. Her every breath was their own. Her safety was paramount. Her contentment their primary goal.

Her head spun dizzily even as her body continued to drop through the air, the time lapse only existing in the sanctity of her own mind.

This change wasn't only for the three. It was for her as well. It took root in her head like a grappling hook. Oh God. She felt the want to give in to them narrowly overwhelm her. The sporadic urges of sparkling behavior threatened to consume her. She wanted to be coddled and taken care of. She wanted all of her desires seen to by the three. She wished to snuggle up against their hardened chassis and feel the warm pulse of their Sparks brushing up against her body and consciousness.

The three mechs appeared in the sky surrounding them as she struggled against the feelings churning within her. They were in their identical bipedal forms, their wings spread wide upon their dorsis. Red optics caressed her form softly – lovingly. The lead Trine-member opened his servos as he and his mates arrowed groundward beside the falling humans. The other two grabbed the five mercenaries while he alone reached for her.

She cooed uncontrollably as she was brought to his thrumming chassis, his Spark's heat warming her down to her core. He was more slender than Optimus Prime, but just as tall. His clawed digits caressed her gingerly.

"What the fuck?!" Epps shouted over the howling winds as the Trine angled off and coasted out of their descent with smooth efficiency. She rubbed her cheek into the pseudo glass of his cockpit/chassis.

She cooed again.

"You are safe, Sparkling." Starscream purred down into her ear, embracing her entirely in one of the many ways he knew intrinsically how to. "Safe, my precious little Sparkling."

And he was _her_ Chevalier…he and his Trine mates, Skywarp and Thundercracker. They landed several dozen yards away from the Galileo building, Starscream crouching his whole frame over her in a protective manner. His wings twitched and she narrowly giggled at the _swoosh_ ing sound they made.

Several voices – not one of _hers_ …they weren't one of the voices belonging to _her_ Chevaliers – cried out in the negative. They were irate and confused. She paid them no heed because her other two crowded around Starscream, their servos joining his to caress her. She hummed, rubbing her nose into the yellowed glass before her.

This was bliss.

"Sam?" Someone asked fitfully.

So nice. She felt so warm and safe. She wanted to lay down and take a long nap, curled up beside their Sparks which now hummed just for her. If only she could find a nice, soft, cozy blanket to curl up in. Everything would be just perfect then.

 _Cooo_.

"Jesus Christ. Sam! Snap the fuck out of it!"

The expletives and familiar voice, a human voice that belonged to a good and trusted friend, broke her out of her absentminded cuddling. She shook her head sluggishly at first and then slammed down every internal wall she could find in an attempt to close the line binding her to her Chevaliers. It wouldn't undo what had been done, but it would at least deaden it a bit.

In doing so she managed to break away from the soul-deep desire to submit and revert to her Sparkling tendencies. As young as she was in comparison to the Cybertronians, as fragile and dependent as her nanites made her sometimes feel, she was still an adult human woman. She wasn't a child. She had responsibilities and people that relied on her.

She had an entire race of beings that depended on her!

"Sparkling?" Starscream questioned her abrupt shut-out of him, his vocal patterns expressing true hurt. His Trine-mates echoed his sorrow even as their consciousnesses beat at the walls she'd so firmly planted between them.

"Damn," she muttered, unable to resist rubbing her forehead into his chassis. Her heart ached in time with the painful clenching and then lurching of her guts. Her hands shook as she pressed them against his plating.

Tearful eyes, one lavender and the other white, turned up to look into his hectically flickering red optics. She couldn't see out of her white eye, but even with a lopsided view of the world around her she could read the despair etched across his faceplates.

"C'mon, Sam," Epps called out to her again, a safe distance away from the three hovering so tightly around her. It had been his voice that had pulled her out of her daze. She could hear destruction being wrought not too far away. The Driller was buckling, its essence sputtering out as it was bombarded by suppressive fire shot by Optimus Prime and several others. The General Brothers, Soundwave and Shockwave, came to blows as Shockwave attempted to near where the Trine guarded her. "What's Plan B? We gotta have a Plan B, here."

Plan B? That was the only letter they had made it to? She thought with dark humor that they should have at least been working on Plan H by that point. Nothing ever seemed to go right whenever some tyrant with an ego-trip took the wheel.

She scrabbled inwardly for an idea… _any_ idea! All the while the Trine tried to force their way back into her awareness, alternating between soothing her into complacency and battering brutally at her shields. Her hold on her conscious self was tentative as best. Between the reawakened pain in her body, the activated Protectorate, and bonded lines thrumming with worry for her, she was having understandable difficulty forming a coherent thought.

Sam shoved her palms into her closed eyes and concentrated.

 _Think, dammit, think!_

A horribly awful idea bloomed after several moments. The fighting around her became white noise as the idea spun itself into a heavy net that trapped her in its entirety. Every time she attempted to jerk away from it she became more of its prisoner. No other plan seemed as solidly possible despite the absurdity of the notion that fixed itself into her mind.

"This is going to suck," she spoke primarily to herself, hunching her shoulders. Starscream squawked as she flashed Allspark power off of her skin to loosen his death grip on her fleshy form. He didn't drop her, but his curled fists were forced to release some of their tautness.

Pain.

 _My God, am I dying?_ She thought blindly as the nanites strained to subdue the part of her stomach that wanted to cave in upon itself. That's at least what it felt like to her fevering mind.

The Trine and those around them had no time to react as she pulled herself into warp. Even if Skywarp, the Trine member with the ability to perform a transpatial jump with he and his mates, managed to track her trajectory he wouldn't be able to follow her in time.

Her human allies were left gawking on the street along with the Trine, the two General Brothers, and the dying Driller.

Optimus Prime, having dispatched said Driller summarily, swung about to aim himself at the nearby Vector Prime.

It was time for the pupil to surpass the master.

* * *

Dylan Gould was sipping brandy, overlooking the wasteland that was once Chicago.

Foreboding churned in his guts.

He had flown into the city by chopper after Vector Prime first opened the rift that pulled a fraction of his Horde into Washington DC. He had been informed that he was to remain nearby so that he could help control 'the other vermin' once they began to ferry the new worker slaves to Cybertron. He chafed at being called vermin, but he'd never been considered daft once in his life. A wise man knew when to speak and a wiser man knew when to keep his proud mouth shut.

It was always best to keep a tight lip around Megatron and Vector Prime alike.

He had never met the Great Lord Megatron until after the debacle with the USS Lincoln and the 'terrorist attack' in Egypt. The Decepticon leader had been present among his followers before that time, perhaps a few years or so, but only for a short time. Soundwave and Lazerbeak, however, had their claws in his family from the very beginning.

As a little boy he remembered first meeting the giant, one-eyed Soundwave and peed in his power-ranger pajama bottoms. The alien's winged pet never ceased to snicker over him 'voiding' himself so shamefully even after decades passed. Soundwave had at one point looked a lot like Shockwave, but in recent years had adopted a sleeker, yet still deadly form. He had wondered where the being's extra mass had disappeared to, but never had the nerve to ask.

Was it like robot liposuction?

He took another healthy swallow of his drink, his brows dropped low as he kept the two on the nearby rooftop in his peripheral. Megatron was a dick – not that he'd ever be caught saying so out loud – but Vector Prime was a dark mark on a starkly white canvas. He was stoically silent as far as he could tell, but his personality was like an overturned ink well over parchment. He stained all that he touched. He ruined it. There was something to be said about the devil you knew and the devil you didn't…and Dylan knew that that red-metaled devil was something entirely evil. He spelled doom for mankind.

Unfortunate that he was in much too far to turn back now.

 _In for a penny, in for a pound_ ; as they say.

The sky shimmered outside of the window. It wasn't the hazy film that had predominated the city for so long now. Instead, a bright blue pulsing blanket shuddered over the once thriving metropolis. It rippled outward in pseudo-gentle waves. From its center arched a downward-facing funnel. It swirled wildly and originated from the primary pillar Vector Prime guarded so fiercely.

It had started, then.

A grid-like pattern showed itself above the wafting blue light, much like glimpses of wind-swept tree branches through a fog. Beyond even that was an orange-lit background that was reminiscent of something someone might see on the Death Star. Craters that weren't craters. A microchip board that wasn't. It was all so familiar, but it wasn't.

More and more of it began to bleed through until he thought the entire sky had been swallowed by the alien world.

It was the oddest whiff of ozone that had the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing on end and gave him his one and only hint that everything was about to spiral out of his control…what little control he had in the first place, that is.

A body tackled him from behind; slighter, but no less powerful. He grunted as his face and chest smashed against the ballistic windows of the high-rise penthouse of his privately owned building in Chicago. The brandy he'd been nursing clattered to the polished wood floors as he sought leverage on the smooth glass.

"Son-of-a-" he began as his muscles clenched. He was amazed that a body that felt so much smaller than his could restrain him so against the window. His profile was crushed against the glass and he had his eyes pinched closed since the room threatened to spin on him. Delicate hands shackled his wrists near to his shoulders and a slender form pressed unerringly against his back. A naughty part of his mind couldn't help but imagine this situation a little differently, preferably with the obviously female body pinning him to his own bed with her legs locked around his…

"Bitch," a husky voice spat in his ear. His eyes did snap open at that, the sound and cadence of that voice disturbingly similar to the blonde bombshell with the disfigured face he'd met in-person such a short time ago.

The visual of her with her tightly-woven braid pressed so intimately against his back didn't lie through his peripheral.

It _was_ her.

"Time to pay the piper, Dylan," she sneered at him, hiking her knee up in a smooth jab to connect with his tailbone. Air wheezed out of his lungs at the swift and sure pain that followed. He wasn't even certain she'd managed to make contact with his scrotum the pain was so all-encompassing in his lower back and ass. Even his thighs burned from that hit.

"How did you…" he started to rasp out only to have one of his wrists released and feel her right arm hook tightly under his chin and around his neck. His other hand was wrenched behind his back so that his shoulder actually creaked from the odd angle she held it at.

 _How can she be so fucking strong?!_

"Never underestimate me, Dylan." There was a sinister smile in her voice as she wrenched him backwards away from the window. He choked on his own tongue at the tightening of her arm. "I've thought of a way that you can redeem yourself. Y'know, lend a helping hand to the humans you turned your back on."

"What are you talking about?" He struggled to shake her off. He fisted his free hand over her forearm, attempting to pry it loose or break it – whichever came first. He was losing oxygen quickly. Her hold just kept getting tighter and tighter with every ragged breath he took.

She was like a kid on their mother's dress skirts of yesteryear. She just couldn't be removed.

"Try not to scream," she warned him.

That whiff of ozone was back, but stronger. Static electricity, or something that felt very much like it, tapped across his skin up and down his entire body. Even though they were inside the air whipped momentarily as though they were caught in the middle of a storm. Then the world disappeared around him with a _**pop**_.

For a single heartbeat terror took hold. Wherever he was, there was only blackness. There was no air. No light. No sound. Total nothingness. He was aware of nothing except the body to his back and his own panic. That and cold so profound it threatened to suck the life right out of him. The nothingness was as cold as the Arctic Tundra and made his bones ache.

Then, as swiftly as the nothing had come it was gone again.

He blinked in the murky light of the outside world. He was no longer in his safe apartment with the decanter open on the bar. The smell of smoke hung in the air. The Decepticon warships were so much closer simply because he was now outside…and on the same roof he'd only dared to look at sidelong.

 _What…?_

Vector Prime whipped around where he stood to look at them, these two fleshy newcomers, but he was too slow to stop whatever it was that Samantha Witwicky had planned. Dylan knew he himself was too slow.

Dylan felt himself pushed with more force than he'd been tackled with. He stumbled and fumbled, his arms swinging as he reached for any solid surface to catch himself upon. Too late to fully realize or stop what was coming, he saw the main pillar before him. He gasped and gagged in an abortive attempt to backpedal and flee even as he kept falling forward.

His hands connected with the energized pillar first and he felt blinding pain. It was the kind of pain that ripped the world asunder. Or maybe that was just him? He wasn't entirely certain as his cognizant thoughts snapped away from him on the back of a fiery whip.

When his torso collided with the pillar it rocked the anchor forward and over the nearby ledge. His body was already overtaken by death-throe seizures. The other body smacked into his again, catapulting them both further out over the edge and down to the street below.

He could have sworn he felt organs bursting into flame inside of himself even as his heart beat for the very last time.

* * *

Samantha shuddered minutely as her body propelled Dylan and the pillar further off the side of Trump Tower. His body bore the brunt of the pillar's dispensing energy. She didn't need to have her ear to his chest to know that his heart had stopped beating a short time ago.

Guilt wanted to flay her alive, but she didn't allow it. She couldn't let herself be crushed under the weight of killing a man, especially when it was a man that had had a hand in systematically handing over his fellow humans on a silver platter to be used as nothing more than chattel. She'd killed Cybertronians before, felt their deaths in the pits of her very soul, and hadn't allowed those actions to sway her. She could do no different when the other party was human. To do otherwise would make her no better than the rest that sought to segregate man from machine.

Dylan Gould's finely tailored suit and skin burned from the intense heat of the pillar. The release of energy would have killed her as it killed him if the primarily liquid makeup of his body didn't trap it so marvelously. His body would be reverted to ash before they hit the ground and the primary pillar would be too fractured to continue to pull Cybertron through to their solar space.

It was unfortunate that she was in the same situation she'd been in only minutes before…falling off of a building at high speeds with no way to warp to safety. She knew, too, that even if the Trine Seekers, her Chevaliers, managed to come once again to her rescue that the discharge from the pillar would be too much for them. Knocked away from its anchoring position, its connection with the other pillars splintered enough that it had no outlet for its expenditure, would short circuit them as soon as they appeared in the air beside her. It would take them offline, possibly even deactivate them, if they so much as attempted it.

She pushed Dylan's chest enough to put distance between she and the falling pillar. She coasted maybe a foot away from it. Her head turned back up at the sound of screaming metal and shattering glass.

Vector Prime was descending after her first, a black rage clouding his blue optics. He used his double-bladed sword as a tool to control his momentum, alternately thrusting it in and out of the tower. He was far enough away from her that the malfunctioning pillar wouldn't hurt him, but near enough to point one of his cannons directly at her. If his plan was ruined, he'd make sure her end came from him and not in proverbial glory, splattering against the encroaching pavement beside the only method he had at his disposal to 'save Cybertron'.

What would hurt more? A point-blank plasma blast or a bellyflop from nearly fourteen-hundred feet? She remembered Egypt and the Fallen's lethal shot to her body. That had been quite painful indeed. Maybe if her head struck the pavement first it would be too quick to feel anything?

If he shot at her, she hoped he missed.

Optimus Prime flew towards Vector Prime from the direction in which the inactive Driller now lay crumbled beneath the Galileo Building. The building itself was most likely in heaps as well, the neighboring building not likely to support the greater mass for long. The two titans crashed together in an explosion of sparks. Flint being struck.

She caught his optics as he hurtled himself and Vector out of range of her, his Spark lamenting at not being able to do more and praying against all hope that she would survive. She didn't see how even after the second entity who had been falling behind the elder Prime came into view.

Megatron was arrowing himself towards her, his leonine body cutting through the air with unfaltering precision. His red optics glowed brightly, their entire focus on her and her alone.

A startled exclamation leapt from her lips as everything – absolutely everything – came to grinding halt. Her body felt like it was being embraced from all sides by gelatin. She was caged in…in open air.

" _You dare to force my hand_." The voice of the Other echoed all around them. Her eyes goggled as the pillar so near to her sputtered and fritzed. Eventually it shorted out, its amassed energy sucked up and put to use in the portal revolving the Earth, the Other now serving as the control. Above her, frozen as she was, Megatron gaped. Every single being around them, the two Prime's immobilized in a deadly lock of limbs included, gawked at the sky. Or more aptly they gawked at the planet coming through a fissure of time and space.

The blonde didn't know whether to scream, cry, or curse the Other as Cyberton began to slip through the portal that the pillars had made. It didn't come through as any being had intended, however. Instead of displacing a whole planet and adding another body-of-mass to the Milky Way, Cybertron disassembled itself. The ten-times greater sized planet oozed through the portal like an infesting plague of locusts, its substantial form breaking off into billions of pieces.

The honeycomb shapes that she'd briefly seen through the veil reversed and drew closer. The blue light and haze over the city blew out of existence. A candle flame snuffed out with a puff of air. Cybertron poured over the Earth on all sides, though she knew that's what it was doing simply because the Allspark told her so. The power in her danced and frolicked as though it had finally come home.

" _Foolish children of Mine and Hers._ " The voice chided them gruffly. The Other was everywhere. She could feel it, _Him_ , whatever he was. Warmth caressed her, a gentle breeze stroking across her skin like incorporeal fingers. Love was in that Godly touch. " _Cybertron cannot be saved. Cybertron was always meant to die, but its body shall yet protect another. The Earth is Hers and thus is Mine._ "

She thought peevishly that he made no more sense now than he had in Egypt. He spoke in riddles and delighted in her confusion. She could feel his chuckle ghost over her for that thought. Yes, he truly did enjoy making her work through all these puzzles he set before her.

"Goddamn bastard," she muttered to herself as the thickened atmosphere relented and released its grip on them. All the while Cybertron reformed itself _around_ Earth.

 _It's shielding Earth!_ Her disbelieving mind finally pieced together. A UAV coasted by her, its lens trained onto her plummeting body. Compass North, apparently. _Cybertron is transforming itself around Earth and acting like a symbiotic organism._

The shock would have buckled her off of her feet if she wasn't already airborne.

By essentially swallowing the Earth, Cybertron was maintaining the smaller planet's integrity within its own solar system and not adversely affecting its ecosystem. The honeycomb pattern solidifying and layering over the Earth would act as constantly rotating shield against foreign objects, be it astronomical anomalies or other alien lifeforms the human race had yet to be introduced to, and in return could feed off of Earth's Sun. Energon would be plentiful again and life could be remade for the Cybertronian race.

Two clawed, silver servos scooped her up in her perilous drop and dragged her from her awed realizations.

Megatron had gained on her, his thrusters bringing him upon her more quickly than if he'd simply allowed his weight to carry him. He pulled her up to his chassis, his Spark thrumming in welcome. She slammed down on the bond he attempted to open widely between them, even going so far as to physically beat at his digits tenderly holding her.

"Did I not tell you that you would be by my side one day soon, Pet?" There was a self-satisfied smile in the words he rumbled out. She gnashed her teeth at him in retaliation.

"Let me drop!" She demanded, liking the idea of striking concrete more than letting him win in that single moment in time. He tsked her, pivoting himself in the air so that his struts were down and his helm was up.

This time he used his thrusters to slow himself from the rapid fall. He wasn't a Seeker, but his Cybertronian alt had been an aerial combat fighter so she assumed that he retained his flyer components even if he assumed a ground-alt. The Trine, which she dizzily attempted to push back out of her active thoughts, circled above them. The three shadowed the Lord Protector as he eased them both down to the streets below.

She'd clearly underestimated the Decepticon leader earlier when Vector Prime hefted him over the edge of Trump Tower. He'd been more than capable of saving himself in the threatened fall – provided the red mech didn't sever any important limbs or fuel lines before releasing him.

Her heart beat frantically when the two Primes, grappling for supremacy, rocked into another building. Their bodies rained down sheets of shattered glass and twisted metal. Jetfire disengaged from Optimus with grated vents of air when the elder Prime tore the bulk of his black-exo components bodily from the red and blue sometimes-semi-truck.

Jetfire recalled his components with electronic wails of pain.

Sam winced in empathy even as her chest rebelled where one of Megatron's claws brushed against her cracked rib and her stomach threatened mutiny. She clenched desperately at her side, knowing that she had reached the point where no amount of fighting was going to combat whatever was wrong inside of her.

"Help him," she barked at Megatron, feeling desperation claw at her through Optimus's line. The Autobot leader was struggling against the greater combatant now that Jetfire was no longer combined with him. They fought just out of sight of the alleyway in which Megatron landed them in.

Had he been able to physically express as much, she would have gotten a raised eyebrow for her pretentious command.

"Cybertron is saved." She gestured with her free hand to the skies above them. He did not look. He didn't need to. Even then, Cybertron was still curling itself protectively around the Earth. The Allspark told her that some parts of the primarily dead world would remain intact and float high in the atmosphere as hovering cities. The core of the derelict world would position itself in a matching orbit to their moon, the honeycomb grid allowing enough shift to permit the continued swing of both orbs before closing back around the path of trajectory. While Earth itself would remain unaltered, there would be unfathomable changes in the space all around it. Due to Cybertron's superior size there would be flotillas further from the planet, but still linked to the whole, that would serve as formidable, moving sentries.

As far as she could discern, Earth had just become the single most fortified planet in the entirety of the Universe. Perhaps an overstatement, but not by much.

"You got what you wanted. With both planets here you can rebuild. You have a chance at a future." Here she quieted, sneering up at the Decepticon as he very gently set her onto the ground by his treaded peds. Taller than Optimus, she scarcely reached his abnormally raised 'shins' unless he flattened his treads out for added stability. "If you stand aside, then Vector Prime is going to win. He'll win and guess who's going to be his little toy bitch? Don't think I was the only one who saw you being strung out over the city like some clunky, old, useless piece of garbage."

 _Big mouth_ , the blonde scolded herself nastily when the air charged with simmering anger. Megatron growled low in his vocoder, the sound reverberating so deeply in his chassis that smaller armor plates clacked from the vibration. _Don't know when to shut up before you stick your big foot in it_.

Megatron snarled, lurching himself forward so that his brightly glowing optics were much closer to herself. His thickly plated right knee speared the concrete beneath him as he kneeled a hairsbreadth from her. His clawed servo had risen as though to strike her down for daring to speak, but he jerked it back just as quickly, his ire hissing out between his dagger-like denta. This was the angriest she'd seen him be with her in years.

When he did nothing but stare at her, she felt her body buckle. Without the immediate threat, and by immediate she meant having a blaster shoved in her face, she couldn't keep herself held up any longer.

"You are injured." It was a statement of fact spoken in a gentler voice that she was beginning to grow accustomed to with him. "There is something beyond that. Internally. You have been _sick_. Soundwave reported this earlier, but I had not thought on it. Humans are highly breakable creatures."

When had Soundwave talked to him about her?

"Would you just shut up?" She snapped at him through gritted teeth. Tears dotted her lashes as she glared up at him. She felt like she'd been impaled through her side by a fireplace poker. Worse, it was followed by the flames of Hell. She was on the precipice of being sick all over the Decepticon warlord. She didn't think he would care for that even if it might tickle her pink before he smeared her across the pavement beneath them.

Megatron chuckled. Surprising. "Still with your loose tongue. We really must work on appropriateness and timing, Pet."

 _Two minutes in his presence and I'm already sick of his thrice-damned endearment. We are not going through this insanity again_.

"I'd hurry along now, Megatron. Wouldn't want to keep your _Master_ waiting, would you?" His robotic form seemed to stiffen at her jeering words. His whole countenance darkened. He pointed a clawed digit at her purposefully.

"You will cease this senseless blather, little one. It is a waste of your breath. Focus instead on your healing."

He straightened to his full height then, his damaged helm sparking as internal recovery systems attempted to mend the mutilation wrought upon his frame. Sam stayed seated on the ground. It wasn't that she didn't want to get up – because she did – but her side was screaming in agony. The nanites weren't working anymore. She was fighting off the desire to just melt into the concrete and be done with it.

Megatron stared down at her placidly.

"You summoned me, Lord Megatron?" A mech she had not previously noted approached from the alleyway. His dusky blue armor was dinged and in certain places singed. He stood several heads shorter than the Decepticon leader with a narrower waist and thicker struts.

"Take my pet to the Nemesis. Have Flatline service her. I have business to attend with my brother." With that command he was propelling himself with great haste around the corner and off towards the battling duo, tearing up the street as he did so.

She was left in the alley with the new mech who glanced down at her with curious crimson optics. Sam returned the look with one of her own before shakily working up to her feet. She stumbled forward and scraped her knees when, at first, her legs refused to bare her weight.

"You require assistance." The mech stated cursorily. His helm canted off to the side. "You are the one I sensed when I came through the portal. You are – you are the Allspark."

"Yup," she retorded flatly, walking doggedly past his unhelpful self.

When she rounded the building to her right, she could plainly see the three giants fighting against each other. With Megatron added to the mix, though Optimus played off his disbelief well, it was obvious that Vector Prime would soon meet final stasis and deactivation. He could not stand against the true Prime and the Lord High Protector, who had the makings of being a Prime himself.

:: _If you wish it so._ :: The Other injected disobligingly into her mind alone. She ignored his veiled statement, snootily replying that his-royal-pain-in-the-ass-ness could shove his riddles up his own tailpipe.

Foolish to think so or not, but she could have sworn she heard his rumbling laugh on the wind.

From all around the city Cruisers were descending, the voice of the Other from earlier having quieted the madness. Cybertron was settling around them. Home was becoming the planet they had sought to destroy. The Allspark was grounding itself, feeding off of the planet it heralded from and reconnecting with it in return. Its powers amplified.

Without having to put any effort into it, without a single thought to do so, every bond the Allspark shared with its Cybertronian children flew open and ignited. Memories, thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and fears shot off as Fourth of July fireworks in her head. Her heart was heavy with the weight of each Spark, each soul, tethering to her, but she also felt lighter than air. She was free for the first time in her entire life with the withered lines reawakened.

It was the influx of everything, of all being One, that had her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

Sam didn't feel her body falling, nor did she feel herself being caught up by two lean servos. Her mind shut down for well-needed and deserved rest even as she was deposited into a curiously cozy cockpit of one of her Chevaliers.

All around the world, mankind watched via the UAV cameras, as the young woman who'd somehow worked with the alien forces to stop what was sure to be the end of the world was carried off in an F-22 Raptor with otherworldly glyphs painted across its wings. Two identical Raptors flanked it, jetting off much too quickly for the UAVs to follow.

…And they wondered; what were they to do now?


	11. Chapter 11: Ascension

**Chapter Eleven: Ascension**

Samantha's right side was aflame and she found a pained moan escaping her chapped lips. She attempted to lift her arms and settle them onto her stomach in the hopes that the added pressure might dull the pain some, but found that they were leaden. She could scarcely twitch her fingers let alone raise her entire limb. A whimper escaped when she discovered that she couldn't even find the energy to lift her head off of the gloriously soft pillow it was settled on.

"Remain calm, sparkling. Undue stress will not be tolerated." The baritone, almost harsh voice had her instincts spoiling to curl her fingers into fists and fight if necessary since she obviously hadn't the energy to get up and run. Her heart rate hitched for only a moment before the nanites took control over and injected themselves more heavily around the muscle to keep it from fluttering again.

Her head lolled to the side to take in the almost lean Cybertronian standing beside the berth she was settled on. He was roughly the same height as Bumblebee, perhaps taller and slightly wider in the upper arms. His base coloring was an impenetrable black abyss while fire-red and dull grey accents added emphasis to his dark appeal. His facial structure reminded her of Thade, the lead chimp from the 2003 Planet of the Apes. Of course his face was more angular, all Cybertronians' were, but there was a distinct 'primate' look about it. She wasn't sure if it was the boxed chin or the flattened nasal ridge that made her think it. His oral cavity was covered by a battle mask and his optics glowed red behind the see-through pale red visor. For a mech he was uniquely handsome.

 _He's got himself a serious brood going on that face of his._

"Good, sparkling. You must remain calm and still for the nanites to do as they were meant to." One of his clawed servos came to rest over her entire torso. A jolt ran through her at the contact. She gritted her teeth when she felt the line, _his_ line, snapping taut and become more solid in her mind. It only occurred to her in that moment that he had been there, anyway…she was only now just realizing it.

Flatline. His name was Flatline. He was Megatron's Chief Medical Officer. He had been a surgeon of the Cybertronian variety even before the War had started. Brilliant. The mech was absolutely brilliant if not a little high-handed and righteous. He was, as the humans would say, born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Her head spun dizzily when she felt them _all_. Every single one of the deadened, starkly cold lines that had maintained between the Cybertronians and the Allspark had flared to life. Well, close to all. If one of them was on the planet or within range of Cybertron's sensor-nets, she was reconnected to them. She felt the bonds as clearly as she'd felt her Autobots for the last several years.

It was difficult to contain her sigh of contentment.

He didn't remove his servo even once she acknowledged the bond and caressed it inwardly. In point of fact, he settled the weight of his servo more heavily onto her, the blunted claws of his digits harmlessly tinging against the berth to either side of her.

"Very good, sparkling." He purred attentively, the claw that would be his thumb rubbing along her scalp.

"Sam." She croaked, only now noticing for the first time that she was wearing a kind of oxygen mask that was not attached to any tubes. Her voice was muffled by it slightly, but she knew that no mask would make her words unintelligible to the 'Con. "My name is Sam."

"Is this your preferred designation? In-depth studies of the homo-sapien reveal that allotted designations at birth are often condensed to ease communication and imply comfort between allies." She eyed the 'Con warily. She'd never get used to the fact that they had to learn to 'speak human' even if they knew English.

"Call me Sam."

"Preferred designation is logged." That monotone sounded eerily like Soundwave. No emotion…no nothing. Speaking of, she wondered where he'd run off to. She was too druggedly tried to reach for him through his line, but his fixation on her demanded that he not stray too far for too long. "Are your pain receptors back online, Sam?"

They were, but she knew that he already knew that. He had a _bond_ with her now. He'd be able to feel her pain since she was physically incapable of blocking him out in her exhaustion. Still, it seemed only polite to answer his question since he had bothered to ask it out loud.

"Yes."

She whimpered again when one finger broke apart much as Ratchet's would to reveal several different alien implements of healing…or torture for some poor unfortunate souls. The tool he lowered towards her, however, was eerily similar to the soft-domed syringe Ratchet had taken to using with her. How did he get that technology? She was certain that she was his one and only human patient. There would have been no need to develop new tools to improve upon the existing human medical technology if he didn't have a human under his care before her.

"How'd you get that?" She mumbled, her brows furrowed as he moved the injector towards her. He ignored the question.

"It is only a mild 'pain-killer'." Without preamble he pressed the smooth cap to the curve of her neck. The pain, not surprisingly, was a lot less than when she'd last had a human doctor give her a shot in her arm. In truth, there was none at all. Just a trickle of coolness and a 'finger-flick' against her skin. Nothing more. "I will keep you on a regiment of fluids and various pain remedies until your nanites have cleared the rupture site completely."

"Rupture?" She slurred, her brows furrowing. _Mild my ass! This stuff's worse than Cortisone on a bender!_

"Your appendix ruptured during the confrontation between Lord Megatron, Optimus Prime, and Vector Prime. Ratchet should have had you under a stricter watch. This oversight will not be made again while you are under the watch of my Lord's mechs." The words were an odd combination of ominous dread and comforting, but she blamed the whole feeling of comfort on her sparkling tendencies and the bond.

Shaking her head, Sam marshaled up her strength and tugged the mask away from her mouth. She didn't have the energy to toss it away from her and so settled for letting it drop beside her head where her hand refused to move afterwards. Instantly the mask was picked up with the surgical-sized tools peeking out from that digit and maneuvered back over her lower face even when she tried to move her head out of the way.

"You will keep this on. It will regulate your breathing which became irregular shortly after your surgery." The mask suctioned to her cheeks as soon as it was applied to her face.

"Don't want it." She argued, now too tired to do anything about it physically.

"It does not matter. The Autobots were too lax with your care. We will not tolerate you weakening yourself." His servo was removed from her person once he was certain the mask would not be moved again.

"Why am I here?" She asked, her eyes glaring at the mech in front of her. She appraised him openly as he pulled up a small datapad and began to log some info into it. "Why aren't I with the Autobots?"

"The Autobots know your location. The implantation on your leg and the tracker in your glute ensured as much. There is a cease-fire between our factions and an end to our war is upon us, but while you reside in our care we are keeping the others at bay. You shall heal first before being returned to this new world of ours." She felt a scan much like Ratchet's tingle over her body and she shivered delicately. Flatline moved quickly towards a table and pulled a plush comforter from the drawer beneath it. In a single, swift movement he had it draped over her body on the berth she was lying on. She assumed that there was a mattress of sorts under her since she felt like she was lying on a cloud instead of hard metal.

"You are here because I desired you here." Another voice rumbled just behind her. Her stomach dropped down to her toes at the gravelly voice. She'd heard this voice so recently…

"Megatron." She whimpered, trying and failing to hide into the false safety of her blanket. Even an adrenalin kick wouldn't give her enough of a boost to get up. She wouldn't be able to run or fight. She was helpless.

"You are causing her undue stress, Lord Megatron," the medic, Flatline, scolded the far larger Decepticon. Sam refused to look at either of them.

"She will come to see that she has no need to fear my wrath. She should have known as much already." The silver titan assured his officer. She heard him move, felt the slight tremor in the ground through the berth she lay on as he approached. It was silent after that, only her harsh breathing through the mask providing background noise to this horrid situation.

She glared as best she could at him as he towered over her prone body. The thought idly passed through her head to flip him the bird – simply for scientific reasons. She was halfway curious to know how much he or any of the other Decepticons knew about human mannerisms. Some of them had been on Earth far longer than she'd been born so she assumed that they would have assimilated to the populace as much as physically possible. The one she'd killed with the grenade knew what the gesture meant in raising a middle finger in another person's direction meant and he, as far as she could tell, hadn't resided on Earth very long at all.

 _Better not_ , she dismissed herself immediately. _I pissed him off earlier. No need to go poking a stick at the sleeping bear._

Megatron chuckled almost fondly. "That fire of yours never dies away, does it, Pet?" Ire spiked in her chest and gut to hear the 'endearment'. She wished she could lash out and grind her fist into those eerily glowing optics of his.

A startled gasp was forced from her lips, though, when his servo lifted over the edge of the berth before settling over her swaddled form. The bond that she'd forced away back in Chicago when she'd been cradled so gently in his servos blossomed. Again, his bond was alight before he touched her, but with her mind moving as sluggishly as it was it was difficult to gauge who was who or what feeling came from what mech. A satisfied whorl slipped from his vocal processors as he connected so intimately with her.

"Such a good sparkling," he purred down to her, the 'pad' of his clawed thumb rubbing up into the side of her face in a lovingly tender stroke.

"I hate you," she hissed, her eyes clamped firmly shut. She didn't want to look at him. She didn't dare to.

"You do not. I can feel many things coming from you, Pet, but hatred is not one of them. Anger, though. You are enraged with me, of that I am sure!" He sounded happy about it. In fact, she could feel the mirth bubbling in him. He enjoyed her attitude.

Suddenly she felt his attention shift. The claw fondling her face ceased to move, though he didn't take his servo off of her. It acted like a second blanket, albeit a hard one. The heat that radiated through them naturally seeped down through the comforter and she unwillingly found herself growing tired. A sense of comfort was threatening to overtake her now that she'd acknowledged the bonds with these two Cybertronians.

She was helpless to stop any of this.

"How many are functioning enough to make contact?" Megatron's deeply gravel voice sent a shudder wracking down her spine. As soon as the chill came, though, it was vanished on the waves of calm being sent to her by the two behemoths standing above her. Elsewhere, too, she felt the answering calls of each of her mechs and femmes. For every switch of her mood, there was a reply. If she felt even a hint of sadness she was swaddled in a tidal wave of support and care that would be impossible to stand against. She was caught in the proverbial undertow of it. "I trust she will be compliant enough to accept them."

"She will be." Flatline glanced down at her, his optics dimming just enough for her to know that he was not overly thoughtful or worried at the moment. She felt that nearly all of his focus was on her. "Now that the immediate danger of the ruptured appendix has passed we must only watch for possible infection. The mechs should be made aware that they are to cleanse their forms completely before entering my medbay. I will not have her catching an airborne illness or one from direct contact. Those Autobots were far too lax in their care of her."

" _She_ is right here!" She snapped in irritation. Was this some sort of commonality all of the Cybertronians shared? The Autobots often talked over her like she didn't exist within the same Solar System, let alone the same room!

"Hush, sparkling." Megatron practically purred down at her. She scowled fiercely at him as if that alone would be enough to make him cower in fear of her. Delight suffused their bond. He very much enjoyed her spitting fire.

"No!" She barked as loudly as she could, fidgeting under the blanket draped over her. Both of them had the nerve to inwardly grin at her, their faceplates unable to express the emotion outwardly. Despite being in the presence of known murderers, Samantha mustered up all the strength she possessed to flip Megatron off. Amusement danced across the bond at the action. Either he didn't know what it meant – which was highly unlikely – or he was tickled by her blatant disregard of his position.

"Don't tell me to hush you fucking bastard." Her breathing was becoming ragged under the mask that was supposed to be helping her breathe.

"Language, little one." He mocked her now, but she felt no malice in it as she had in the past. The Fallen no longer controlled him. He wasn't the evil entity that he had been for so many vorns, not the tyrannical leader that she had been introduced to, but he was a righteous bastard as far as she was concerned. "What is that human punishment? Ah, yes, perhaps I should wash your mouth out with soap."

"Say that again and I'll shock you so hard you'll look like Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree." It wasn't a threat at that point. She meant it with every fiber of her being. As soon as she was feeling better she was going to shoot enough Allspark energy into the 'Con leader to give him his first and only afro.

His optics shuttered, obviously referencing what she had just said. She was distracted from him, however, by Flatline moving one of his servos closer to her. He had that damned injector again.

"Want me to tell you where you can stick that?" She sneered at the encroaching tool. "Here's a hint…the Sun don't shine there."

"You are quite humorous," he told her without a hint of hilarity. Megratron removed his own servo from her body at the medic's approach, their understanding of each other's needs easily transferred via their private Comm lines. He held the injector aloft, not quite touching her with it. The glint of light that reflected off of the side of the liquid-filled tube was laughing at her. It was an inanimate object and entirely controlled by the mech wielding it, but in that single moment it was alive.

"You need to recharge. I will aid you."

"Jerks." She muttered as he pumped her full of sedatives. Her eyelids drew down and settled tightly closed after only a two-second count.

* * *

When she woke again, Samantha was feeling much better.

She rolled her head so that her cheek was cradled by the richly soft and plush pillow. A cursory glance around the room showed her that she had been moved at some point. She was in a new place, one that was oddly beautiful despite its alienness.

The room was cavernous. She was laying on a platform in the center of the room. There were steps on four sides, sinuous in shape and form. The steps led roughly ten feet down into a hundred-foot diameter – give or take a few feet – divot. Yet more steps, these ones larger by far, pulled upwards from the depression to an 'upper' level roughly twenty-feet higher than where she currently lay. The steps from her platform morphed into bridges made from phosphorous aquamarine-hued veins imbedded into gunmetal which weaved over a glowing lavender pool. The lavender liquid was odorless, but gave off a fair amount of heat…enough that she could feel it where she lay. The gunmetal pathways arched faintly like bridges over 'water'.

From the ceiling, which was higher up than any she had ever encountered before, crystals of the same shade of purple as the pool, 'dripped' downward. They were fused together into sparkling chains, several dozen clustering together to mimic an archaic chandelier of sorts while others hung loosely after a singular point of connection. The entire ceiling was alight with the crystals as they spiraled along its domed canopy and met in the exact center. From there the chains poured down and caught droopily on a circular metal frame fifteen feet above her platform. The ends of the chains splayed out all around her, a veritable curtain of pearlescent beauty. The crystals themselves were no larger than the tips of her pinky fingers and when she reached out to the nearest one they tinkled like soft windchimes caught in a summer breeze.

"You are awake. That is good." Peering through the curtain of crystals she could see the Trine, her Chevaliers, stepping forward to the edge of the higher level. They kneeled as one, their red optics intently focused on her. "You are healing well, Sparkling. You draw much strength from this sacred place."

"Where is here?" She wondered out loud, pushing off the silky blanket that had been dutifully tucked around her. She was wearing only a white top around her chest reminiscent of a sports bra and a glance at the juncture of her legs beneath the blanket showed equally pristine boy shorts of the same non-restrictive material. There was a mesh patch over her side, a clear string that adhered to her skin around and over the incision site. It was another medical marvel Ratchet had created in the process of engineering the Honeycomb casts and bulb-tipped injectors. She wondered again where the Decepticons came across the inventions.

"The Temple of Simphur," Thundercracker spoke from slightly behind her. The three were evenly spaced from each other, their positions signaling visually that they were in a sentry-formation.

The name meant something to her. The Allspark, when it had first come into existence, had originated in what was presumed to be Simphur – though it had no name at the time. As the ancient archives stated, the Thirteen Primes had erected the temple around the Allspark as a way to both safeguard it and to give unbiased access to it for the Cybertronian race. A city had risen around the temple in the many vorns after its creation, the temple becoming sacred to the alien race.

The Allspark itself informed her that the crystals and liquid pool were in actuality pure Energon. The chamber she lay in had not, at one point in time, looked the way it did presently. The cavern was so immense so as to hold the behemoth that the Allspark had once been. The 'pool' around her had been filled to the top, the platform she lay on an anchoring point for the Cube. The crystals and pool glowed due to the Allspark's intrinsic power radiating outward and in turn the raw Energon boosted the Cube's reserves. If memory served, a memory siphoned from other mechs and femmes whom had come to Simphur before the War began, the crystals had always hung like a protective cloak around the mass that was the Allspark, but their pattern had changed with her new stature.

"Cybertron and the Allspark are tied together," Skywarp spoke, seeming to understand where her thought processes were at that moment. "When Cybertron reshaped itself around your Earth it altered itself drastically. It is apparent that Simphur transformed itself to better suit the requirements of the Allspark's new shape. You."

She supposed that being in this place, the home of the Allspark, had aided in her healing. She felt discomfort when she attempted to sit up, but it was nowhere near the level of pain she'd felt beforehand. The heat emanating from the pool surrounding her was a balm. Even the softly glowing crystals pulsed at her and sent her skin to tingling pleasantly.

The sound of tiny wheels whirring and dainty metal peds clanking against yet more metal had a smile rising to her lips. A happy chuckle bubbled forth as Starscream verbally groaned at the two drones' exuberance as they bounded past him, over the high rise and into her wallow. The two ran with all haste towards her, fumbling up the smaller set of steps like two little kids attempting to beat each other to the cookie jar.

"Sam!" They both cheered, bounding into her with their little metal frames. She narrowly managed to pull the blanket back up and in their direct path or else she might have suffered superficial scrapes to her skin for their jagged exoplates. They were obscenely cautious of her still mending side as they hugged her in a human fashion. Their helms nuzzled her in affection.

"Hi guys. Howya been?" The two reeled away from her, their red optics suddenly stern. Or rather their emotions were stern. Even Wheelie's relatively expressive face wouldn't have been able to portray the glower he was giving her internally.

"A ruptured appendix?!" Wheelie shouted at her angrily. He waved a digit at her in much the same way as her mother did to her when she was naughty as a little girl. "You suffered a ruptured appendix and you have the nerve to ask after us!"

"You's been stupid, Sam," Brains muttered in his humming, smoke-chain way. His arms crossed even as he shook his head sagely. "Coulda had Hatchet check ya, been done wit' it. But no. Said ya had a stomach bug. Stupid."

"Hey!" She rapped him firmly between his optics with a knuckle, indignation blooming in her gut before soothing calm was bathed over her. She sighed deeply. It would get old real quick if she couldn't figure out a way to either suppress the backlash of the others' instinctive need to serve and sooth or to rebuild her own walls so that they felt only what she wanted them to feel from her. "I am _not_ stupid."

"You are a tenacious Sparkling," Starscream intoned from above, his helm canted off to the side. Delight rang in his Spark for her and his joy at being in her service. "Often the young ones of either of our species pay little heed to the signs their bodies tell them. You should have rested and received treatment had you merely suffered from an Earth virus, but you are fiercely independent."

"She is stubborn," Skywarp smirked from the other side of the platform. There was a wealth of kindness and admiration in that statement when there should have been censor.

"All the more reason to keep a watchful eye on her," Thundercracker practically eye-rolled at his Trine-mates and she felt a placating pat to her smarting ego.

"Enough." She gave them all a baleful look before turning her attention back to the two little ex-'Cons. She fought the urge to hug them, but couldn't resist placing a kiss – no more than a peck – to the ridges that would have been their brows on a human. The two preened at the show of affection. "I missed you guys. How did you get here? I mean, how are you here? Flatline said something about a ceasefire, I think, but aren't I still under Decepticon watch?"

"The Temple of Simphur is a sacred place, Sam." Wheelie patted the back of her hand. "It is also neutral ground, especially when the Allspark is present. A sanctuary for All. There are others outside, but your – Chevaliers – are keeping them out."

"Why?"

"They will show you respect," Starscream stated firmly, his optics brightening for a moment with climaxing emotion. "Your pace shall determine theirs. You will not be accosted by any, my Allspark."

 _Well, I'm over all the genuflecting already_ , she thought morosely.

She felt like she'd been placed on an altar. When she thought about it more, looked around herself again, she was certain of it. She was sequestered inside of an ancient Cybertronian temple, wherever in the Hell that resided now, with a contingent of guards posted around her. She hadn't needed Wheelie to tell her that there were others outside of the grand room she lay in. She had felt them. There were a few that she had been familiar with in these past years, her Autobots, and even them she felt traces of worshipful praise from. The newcomers, for lack of anything else to call them, knew no other recourse. They didn't know her as the person she was. They only knew her as the Allspark.

That was going to change right quick.

Sam noted idly as she moved to get up that the platform she lay on was sunken in and filled with a foamy material. It was almost like a mattress tucked down between four walls. It was exactly the right density for her comfort and that was a bit startling.

Three holoforms fizzled into existence around her. Black-haired, over six-feet tall, with finely honed muscles. They were triplets as far as she could see and wore matching bomber jackets with Cybertronian glyphs stitched into the right sleeves. Despite looking like mirror images of each other she could immediately tell which mechs were which. A knack of being, essentially, connected soul-to-soul with each of them.

"Allow us to help you," Skywarp urged her softly, kneeling so that she could swing one of her arms up over his wide shoulders while his opposite one wrapped around her waist. Her knees were weak when he eased her into an upright position.

The two miniatures near to her feet fretted as Skywarp walked her slowly up and out of her wallow. She felt chilled without the heat of the raw Energon bracketing her on all sides. In point of fact, she felt herself waning the farther she drew from it.

"The strength you draw from this place is why you were brought here. It sped your recovery to a great degree." Starscream held her free hand in support as she climbed up over the higher steps to where his true body still kneeled. She wouldn't lie and say that she wasn't shaking from the effort it took to move, but it also felt good in a way. She'd been prone for too long. He muscles felt half stuck in an atrophying state.

"How long have I been here? No, how long since Chicago?" She took a moment to gather herself once she'd reached flat ground. Her legs trembled for several moments as she bolstered herself. Slowly so as to not unbalance herself, Sam pulled her arm away from Skywarp. He allowed her, but their keen eyes and optics trailed her determinedly. "What's happened since then?"

"It has been five days," Thundercracker intoned. Her stomach dropped.

"Five days?" She squeaked. She'd been out for five days. What had happened in that time? Who had stepped up to try and mediate for the Cybertronians while she was incapacitated? The fallout of what had happened in Chicago and the unavoidable fact that another planet, one that had been home to the alien machines that attacked said human city, now wrapped itself around Earth was bound to be tremendous. Arbitration couldn't wait on the back burners while she recovered.

She was mindless to most else after that.

Samantha strode shakily towards the doorway of the chamber, not really seeing the splendor of this upper level as she went. She would have time, she was sure, after this sorted affair was dealt with. She had no idea what she was walking into, but she was still needed. Of that she had no doubt.

"Stubborn," Skywarp repeated, just as pleased as he had been earlier.

"Sammi, wait up!" Wheelie shouted after her. Brains hop-skipped beside her, his pointed gaze not leaving her face. He was gauging her. Monitoring her.

"Too much to do," she muttered, entering a long hallway.

The Temple of Simphur was enormous. Raw Energon crystals were imbedded into the walls all around her, lighting as she approached and dimming again as she passed. The temple was sized for even mechs of Astrotrain's size to comfortably move about. It should have been a maze to her, but she could have walked the halls blindfolded. She felt as though she'd been there before…lived behind these walls. In another life, as the Allspark, she supposed she had.

The outer chambers were just as lavishly designed and built as the main room in which she awoke. There were mechs and a scant couple of femmes here, most of them familiar. Autobot faces. One peeled himself away from the rest, his yellow plating blurring as he rushed her.

"Oh, Sam!" Bumblebee crashed to his knees before her, his helm lowering so far that she could press her forehead against his. Her hands gripped the circular cap of his oral cavity and squeezed. She brushed her cooling forehead slowly back and forth across his. The light from his optics glinted off of her skin strongly.

Brows puckering, she squinted at the glow. She released one side of his oral cap to turn her arm over from one side to the other. She wasn't imagining things. Her skin was slightly golden now, flecked with something akin to metallic pixie dust. It didn't move when her arm did. It didn't disperse when she puffed a breath of air over her bared shoulder. Irritation spiked.

"What the hell happened to my skin!" She looked at the few assembled accusingly. It wasn't likely that they had done this – whatever it was – to her, but she wanted somebody to blame! She was under duress and couldn't be faulted for her snarky attitude. She hoped not, anyway.

"It is epidermal scaling." She peered around and over 'Bee's shoulder to see the two medics, Autobot and Decepticon, standing side by side. They had been in conversation with each other with the Autobot scout when she'd first entered the room. It was Ratchet that spoke. "Cybertron and the Allspark feed off of each other. This temple is as pure as it was on the day of the Allspark's creation and the power you wield is amplified by the raw energy. With the boost of energy your nanites have been able to accelerate the mutation of your human body."

"Mutation," she muttered, not liking that word and liking its implications even less. She flicked her hand negligently, almost mesmerized by the play of light against her glittering skin.

Flatline picked up the baton where his 'colleague' had left off. She was surprised that she wasn't more surprised over their smooth cooperation with each other. It couldn't be called comradery by any means, there was no love lost between them she could feel through the bonds, but they were acting with total civility.

"Your human body has advanced and improved since your imbuement with the Allspark, yes? Ratchet has sent me a highly detailed datapac with all of your medical information." The 'Con was silent for only a moment before continuing. "This alteration would have occurred within the next thirty years or so, by the human clock, but the amplification of your powers has allowed for quicker modifications. There is less strain on your nanites to balance priorities."

She was listening to them, she really was, but the shimmer fascinated her. Flip. Sparkle. Flip. Glimmer. She poked at the skin, feeling the difference immediately. She was still soft, but the fine hairs she'd once had were absent and the skin had less elasticity when she pulled at it. A quick peak at her legs revealed an equal absence of hair and similar textures.

A giddy thought chirped in her mind that she probably never had to shave again. The smile that came with that thought died a swift death as another thought occurred to her and she fully released Bumblebee to reach for her scalp.

A sigh of relief poured from her lips as she felt her hair, still there and deftly plaited, running from the front of her head to the back and trailing from the braid down to her knees. It, too, felt a bit different. Not exactly coarse, but certainly more rigid. It should have pulled more at her scalp than it normally did when she hefted the tail of her braid and found it substantially weightier, but that wasn't the case. In truth, despite the extra weight, her head felt lighter. She hadn't felt the relief of not having the braid or excess length since before the Cybertronians arrived on Earth!

Her open mouth and wide eyes had the nearby behemoths chuckling good naturedly at her.

"It is the scaling. It hardens your exterior form." Ratchet was smiling at her gently through their bond, pleasure at seeing her soaring up and down his normally gruff countenance. "The hair of your head also thickened from the scaling, but the fusion at the follicle would have been reinforced and enabled you to feel less of its weight."

"It's not metal." It was a statement, not a question. The metallic glint notwithstanding, her skin was still skin…just _more_.

"No, it is not." Ratchet conceded easily. He meandered towards her, running an unobtrusive scan over her scantily clothed form. She didn't flinch from it nor chide him for doing it without asking. "It is a predominately biological growth; a hardened skin cell, if you will. I would wager Ironhide all of my highgrade that you could submerge your skin in boiling water with little to no ill effects."

"I highly discourage such reckless behavior," Flatline intoned upon feeling her spark of curiosity and seeing the mischief that crept up into her eyes. He fixed her with a paternal glare. "You will not like the repercussions for your actions if you disobey me in this."

"No boiling baths," she agreed readily. She had other ideas of how she wanted to test out her new skin once she had enough time to do so.

Shaking off the wonder of her new skin – what else of her was going to change? – Sam strode around the mechs and out through the grand doorway. Unlike most of the portals through rooms that the Cybertronian ships and bases sported, Simphur boasted a set of marble-esque panels that swung outward in the same way a traditional human door would. They were etched with runes, the language of the Primes, and studded with yet more raw Energon crystals.

"Is it because the temple is sacred that you never used the Energon here? Would it have been considered desecration?" She found herself asking, not questioning how the eighty-foot tall doors appeared to open for her of their own accord. Her finger trailed one of the crystals, enjoying the heat it radiated into her skin and delighted by the sudden glow it displayed.

"To bring ill-will to this temple is blasphemous," Ratchet informed her sullenly, he and the other medic trailing behind her. She could feel their focus lasered onto her. She didn't dare sneeze for fear of being bundled up and carried back into the central chamber to rest. She was done resting. "Beyond that, this Energon is not just raw. It is pure. Pure Energon may only be utilized with the Allspark's power due to its more complex makeup and the necessity of high-influxes of energy to mold it."

"I was Sparked here," Bumblebee told her brightly, his pretty blue optics shining gaily when she peered at him over her shoulder. "Between the will of Primus and the Allspark, a Spark can be infused within the frame of a provided mech or femme. In the glory days of Cybertron, protoforms were borne before the Allspark and, if it was His will, a Spark would enter into that frame. The pure Energon you see acts as both a conduit and a power source for newly Sparked Cybertronians."

"Not all were so fortunate," a new voice arose from the outside. Sam startled, eyeing the twosome warily. She shouldn't have. As clearly as she could feel Soundwave, Shockwave too now clutched at their bond with equal parts desperation and elation. The two mechs stood proudly together, glorying in her scrutiny of them. When she touched their lines tentatively, they lashed out with wicked accuracy and enfolded her into their souls. They were manic in their praise of her.

Shockwave's singular crimson optic scowled at those others around and behind her. He was not a mech that shared kindly. He knew the bonds she held with them all for what they were, but he did not enjoy having to jockey for her attentions and affections. Not that there was anything to worry about on that front. For as many of them as there was, she held each of them separately, but equally to each other. She did not deny one for the sake of another. She couldn't. Hundreds of thousands of souls, of _Sparks_ , and she could discern them all with the ease of breathing. It should have frightened her that she could do so, but she'd had years to become acclimated to the idea of becoming the Allspark and all that that implied.

"Soundwave and Shockwave were unlawfully Sparked by their creators. When a Spark was not granted to their offered protoforms, their Creators mechanically withdrew Allspark power from the Cube and Primus was left with little option but to provide the Spark. Without a Spark, a powered protoform is nothing except a base, insentient machine that acts on the original directive of our race." Flatline shook his head slowly and sadly. "What was done to them is considered one of the most heinous crimes committable by a Cybertronian."

She'd known as much. Their memories were her own. She knew how warped their processors were and what pains they suffered for their ill-timed Sparking. In the depths of her heart she knew she would do everything she could to ease their suffering. It would take work and time, possibly years of time, but she thought she had a chance of improving their lots in life.

Sam knew she could do nothing then and there and so, instead, moved to the jagged edge that was the floating Temple of Simphur.

Her eyes goggled.

Simphur was high above the Earth. A rough estimate would have the temple hovering at least forty-thousand feet over the ground. The approximation was vague, based only on her experiences from flying across the Earth and how the terrain, if it was familiar, appeared. The land beneath the temple _was_ familiar. They were over Belle Fourche, South Dakota. The Devil's Tower was a notable geographic feature even so high in the air.

Around the temple orbited true warships. The Cruisers that had plagued Chicago were nothing but children's toys in comparison to the heavily armed flotillas that coasted menacingly around the vast building. There were perhaps two dozen soldiers upon each ship and a quick count told her that there were twelve of the mighty beasts guarding the floating island. Prodding the lines and even tugging with curiosity she found that there was a mixture of each faction aboard the ships.

There was rivalry, yes, but the threat of genocide was gone. In its place stood a singular army of warriors pledged to serving a greater good.

 _Her_.

Not wishing to ponder _that_ thought too closely, she marveled at the transformation of her world and the space around it. Cybertron still shifted its mass over the planet's surface, but certain additions were now affixed. More buildings and cities floated further out from Simphur. Unlike Simphur, however, the others appeared derelict and in need of an imbuement of life. Higher in the atmosphere and beyond were the honeycombed shields. The sun's light blazed through the shifting bars of the shield, caressing the land beneath otherwise unhindered. Further along the horison, almost to the point that she could not see it, swung a mighty bridge. It rose nearly twice as far into the sky as where they hovered, touching from one horizon to the other. The supporting columns of the monolith were miles wide.

"It looks like one of Saturn's rings," she awed, stepping so far forward that the mechanoids behind her tensed. Her bare toes hung over the edge. She paid their paranoia no mind, wishing in the sanctity of her own mind to touch the ring that had been made to circle Earth. It was the same purple as the pure Energon crystals and each of its arches ornately fashioned to resemble two-dimensional tree branches.

"Sweetspark," Bumblebee murmured right beside her. His holoform's arms loosely wrapped around her middle and urged her back away from the perilous edge. "Sam, please, let's get you back inside."

Inside? She didn't want to go inside. She couldn't go inside. For a brief moment she wondered why she felt so strongly that she couldn't go back to that comfy altar/bed or even remain to marvel at the splendor of their new world. Then reality hit her like an anvil tossed at her sometimes thick head. She was Wile E. Coyote duped by the ingenious roadrunner.

She'd been asleep for five days. The Earth had a new set of residences to deal with as well as a planetwide makeover courtesy of Cybertron. Not to mention the annihilation of Chicago under Vector Prime's disillusioned peds.

"Shit. Who's in charge right now?" She moved hastily out of 'Bee's comforting embrace. She was becoming slightly frantic. "Please tell me that someone from N.E.S.T. has been helping to mediate this. Where do we stand? What are the humans doing? Are there any rebellions arising? What of the Cybertronians? The War…"

"Easy, Sam," Ratchet chided her. "Do not stress yourself."

Flatline actually snickered, the sound caught somewhere between hydraulics hissing and a muffler popping. She glared haughtily at him.

"Don't tell me what to do and don't laugh at me. This is your future I'm worried about. _Our_ future!" She whirled on them harsh enough to cause her side to rebel, the healing incision stretching painfully enough under the patch to make her cy out. She set her hand over the patch and hunched over protectively. Her back rejected that move, too, thanks to the rib fracture.

She didn't notice the abrupt glow of the Energon crystals all around her, but through tearful eyes she could see the warships whirl in midair so that the bulk of their cannons faced outward, the aft-sides tucking in close to the temple.

 _Overkill_ , she sneered in her head, tipping her hand back enough to see that at least the medical patch had held. She wasn't bleeding.

Five Decepticons and one Autobot engaged their holoforms, all big bodies huddling closely beside her and attempting to ease her burden. The two ex-'Con drones raised their spindly arms from beneath her as though to catch her if she fell. Calm filled her to brimming from the bonds. The only two to remain stone-faced were the medics. They shared a speaking look between themselves before venting heavily.

"Let us gather supplies for travel." Ratchet was shaking his helm and marching back off into the building. "She must be prepared and secured before we depart. She will not calm until her questions are answered and her fears waylaid."

"Lord Megatron will not approve of this." Flatline reached down and scooped her up from the middle of the protective holomorphic circle that had formed around her. She was tucked up into his chassis firmly and she hummed gladly at his offered warmth. Her fingers dug into the divots and grooves of his chest plating.

"Optimus Prime will be no less displeased." Ratchet turned back his face enough to look upon her held so securely and contentedly by his fellow medic. Softness seeped into his countenance. For as standoffish as he tended to be, his bedside manner leaving much to be desired by those he tended to so diligently, he was as fallible as any other in regards to her. Her frailty and dependence triggered a base reaction from him…unwavering devotion and love.

"But She is what matters most," he stated with utter calm. "Her will supersedes all."

…She really had to figure out a way to dispel the worshipful adoration before they killed her with it.

* * *

Starscream stood to her back with his Trine flanking him.

The blonde had taken a seat offered almost immediately upon her arrival to the city. It wasn't plush nor attractive, but the foldable steel chair offered her respite. The flight into Chicago had been a rapid affair with little fuss. After having her dress in a pair of well-worn jeans and a loose t-shirt, all personal effects of hers that they must have stored in subspace at some point in time, she'd been bundled up quite literally inside of silken blanket and tucked safely into the Wing Commander's cockpit.

She wasn't too proud to admit that she'd napped the entire way.

Upon arrival she had been amazed by amount of effort being put in by human _and_ autonomous-robot alike to raise the city back onto its feet. In the time since her incapacitation, the bulk of the rubble and dangerously tilted buildings had been stripped. Towering, powerhouses of Cybertronian machinery speckled the streets, erecting clearly superior frameworks for the thousands of humans that had come in to help from across the country. No, the _world_ had pooled together in this desperate hour of need.

As far as any human was concerned, and she would fight tooth and nail to see it so, Chicago would be the last innocent to fall prey to a War brought to Earth from the heavens above.

Somehow, someway, the two races were working together. The Cybertronians were eerily silent, but they diligently applied themselves to repairing the metropolis they'd so recently torn asunder. Most were the lower-ranked Decepticons, as the rival faction boasted more numbers than the Autobot side, but there were Autobots of all stations as well. She had known simply by being the Allspark that there were many, many more of the titanic race than she had met before, but it was a shock to her systems to see _so many_.

While the human population was staggering, an eye-boggling seven-billion-plus, the Cybertronians were not so limited themselves. There were millions of them even after hundreds of thousands of years of War. Many had taken refuge on nearby planetoids to Cybertron and waged their battles as close to 'home' as they dared. When Vector Prime had activated his pillars and began the process of pulling Cybertron into Earth's solar system, the withering planet had gathered up its people and pulled them along. One of the workers, a femme by the name of Jumpstart, had come up to her in order to greet only to divulge how she'd been pulled through a vortex and deposited on the other side of the pillars' tear in the fabric of time and space.

The Other had something to do with that. She couldn't say for certain how she knew, but she did. That backwards-talking whatever he was had his meddlesome fingers in everything. She had her suspicions on exactly who he was, but she'd yet to have her theories proven.

Jumpstart hadn't been the only being to approach her and her vigilant sentinel of Seekers, either. There had been humans aplenty eager to shake her hand. There were a multitude of women who, for some reason beyond her, idolized her for what she stood for. There were hundreds of people who had been following the trail of breadcrumbs left for years leading to the outing of intelligent alien life on Earth. Many of those people had come to Chicago to see with their own eyes that it was true, but also to help. There were military outfits that had been previously aware of the Cybertronians as well as cyber-sleuths lining up to shake her hand.

Beyond the humans there were the Cybertronians themselves. They had known of her coming since her grand decision to leave Simphur and Starscream's abrupt open-comm pronouncement. When she reached the city limits there'd been a further contingent of guards stationed a respectable, yet protective distance from her. The humans didn't know it due to their deliberate distancing from her, but that was for the better. Homosapiens were not well known for keeping a level head when faced with the threat, even an aloof one, of violence.

The Trine were tensed to the point she thought one good rap on their frames and they'd shatter from the forced strain.

She offered help where she could for the proceeding several hours even if it was handing out water and food in the meal lines set up for the workers. Beside those lines were the medical tents. One person or another was meandering through due to clumsy feet or fingers. Most of the wounds were superficial at best. Jolt himself was assisting the human medics, introducing some of the lesser-advanced healing techniques he and Ratchet had developed. It was yet another strategic move on their parts. Helping the humans not only rebuild, but also to mend their ills was easing their sudden transition from 'maybe existing' to 'you-have-got-to-be-shitting-me real'.

Jolt sternly told her off every time she made a move to do anything more than pass around some soup or apply ointment to a youngster's burned finger. The young mech could sound so much like Ratchet that her head had to turn to prove that it was actually not the sourpuss medic snapping at her. It didn't help matters that every time Jolt scolded her it was swiftly followed by an internal deluge of kicks in the ass via the bonds, demanding that she take it easy and listen for a change.

"Sam!" A familiar, oh so welcoming voice boomed from her right.

Sam squealed with delight at seeing the dark-haired, leanly muscled man striding purposely towards her. She darted around Starscream's peds when he made an abortive attempt to block the newcomer. Her side protested the quick movements and all out screeched at her when she stretched on tippy toes to hug one of her best friends in the entire world. He embraced her back almost as hard, his big hands gentled on her lower back.

"Mike!" She pecked his cheek, beaming up into a face that was no longer boyish, but still just as handsome. He was grinning at her with that crooked infectious smile of his. "What in the world are you doing here?"

"What do you think? I've come to help our friends." He set her back away from him so that he could take in the full state of her. Minus the blindness of her right eye with its white iris and pre-existing scar tissue, he would see nothing out of the ordinary. He still frowned at her with disapproval. "You can't stay out of trouble, can you?"

"Honey, you know Sam can no more behave herself than you can remember to keep the whites out of my damned coloreds bin!" That lilting voice had her shoving Mike off to the side so that she could embrace yet another person she had the honor of calling a true friend.

"Shelby!" Samantha tugged the smaller woman into her arms and rocked her back and forth enthusiastically. The brunette chortled, patting her back delicately. When she released her, Sam felt her jaw hang to see the noticeable bump on Missus Bane's stomach. The easy way in which she settled her hand over said roundness confirmed the motherly instinct was ever present in said woman. "Oh my God. I'm so happy for you two!"

She was back to hugging them both, passing sloppy kisses between their cheeks and cheering over the miracle soon to be bestowed upon them. The couple laughed with her. It was Shelby that halted her blathering. The smaller woman touched her cheek with fondness. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears.

"Sam, I know you haven't known me as long as Mike, but you truly are one of my best friends. You are a good, honest, and dependable person. I should have been jealous of you, but I never could be. You're just – you're too good to be true, honestly." She snickered then and took to a teasing tone. "Except for the company you keep. Really, you could stand to let someone else babysit the robot warriors from the far reaches of the galaxy for a change.

"But what I mean to say, or rather _ask_ , is this…would you be willing to be the godmother to our baby? If we're so blessed, we'd love for you to be the godmother to all of our children. Would you do that for us? Could you? Oh, Sam, I just known they'll love you as much as we do."

That did it. For all of the nightmarish things that had happened in the past days, for all of the death and senseless loss, there was one glimmer of hope presented to her so prettily. The hope for a future and new life. A family of the human variety for her if she chose to accept it.

The blonde woman sobbed, a keening wail erupting from her chapped lips. She tugged Shelby back into her arms, almost hugging the life out of the poor woman. Tears feel freely as she glanced at a worried Mike over her shoulder.

"Of course," she choked out, rocking in search of her own comfort instead of in ill-contained gaiety. She was thrilled, certainly, but her heart thundered in her chest at this new responsibility she couldn't _not_ take on. Here these two were offering her a human family to have and to hold, something she thought she would never have once her own parents left this life. It was a miracle within a miracle. "I would be honored. Oh, I'm going to be a godmother!"

"That comes with certain obligations, Sam." Mike shook a scolding finger at her. "No more of these suicide missions you seem so keen on. You need to be whole and healthy for our kids. Heaven knows they're gonna run me and Shelby ragged! They'll need their Auntie Sam to spoil them and teach them all the stuff we think is too inappropriate for them to learn. Plus, if my boys turn out anything like me, they'll need someone to bail them out of whatever pickle they get themselves into."

"I'm hoping for all girls," Shelby whispered in her ear, the mirth shining in her eyes telling the taller woman that it didn't matter to her in the slightest what gender their children were. She just wanted healthy, happy babies.

"We were going to tell you in a week or so. Shelby's due in another two months." Mike placed a hand onto her back between her shoulder blades, his blue eyes peering down at her seriously. "Then this shit happened with that big bastard, Vector Prime. We saw you break through on every channel and do some otherworldly stuff, Sam. Everyone did. Even knowing what I know it was still something to see."

"After Optimus and that other one, Megatron, ripped Vector Prime to pieces," Shelby picked up where her husband had let off, a sinister smile touching her normally sweet face, "it was completely crazy. Those three – " here she gestured towards the hovering Trine – "took off with you and no one knew what to do."

"That's where I came in."

Startled, Sam whirled to face the elder blonde woman approaching with her own, less formidable escort. She hissed at the stab of pain to her side and back and Jolt, who'd been diligently tending to a young man with a sprained ankle, jackknifed his attention to her. She felt a scan slip over her and shivered, but pushed him off internally. She was fine. She just moved too quickly.

:: You are on notice, Sparkling. :: He warned her firmly through the comm that didn't bother her as much as it had before the final confrontation with Vector Prime. :: Move slowly and do not overtax your body. You are still healing. ::

:: Aye aye, mother. :: She mocked him snidely and earned a darkened glare in return.

:: Enough sass, girl. ::

Charlotte Mearing hadn't switched out of her formal, business attire, though she was wise enough to wear a pair of pumas instead of pumps in the midst of all the rubble around them. She looked as tired as she'd ever seen her. Dark impressions hung beneath her carefully painted face. Even with a beautician at her beck and call, there wasn't a lot that could be done for the exhaustion physically showing upon her face.

She had an entourage of at least five security personnel. All human. One of them she suppressed an amused snicker for. It was the lead agent that had picked her up from the parlor. Agent K. He was wearing the same blacker than black suit and impenetrable sunglasses.

Behind them were several N.E.S.T. soldiers including Lennox and Epps. The mercenaries they'd come into Chicago with, minus the unfortunate Ames, were with them also. Off to Mearing's side, just in front of the disgruntled security detail, was Simmons in his powered wheelchair. Dutch followed his boss silently, his expression mild in comparison to the handicapped man rolling before him. Simmons wore an expression similar to that of the cat that caught the canary as he watched Mearing's ass sway in her pencil skirt.

She'd been right after all. The two had a thing for each other.

"You left one hell of a mess in your wake, Miss Witwicky," Mearing chided her with firmed lips. She assessed the three identical Cybertronians bracketing her with a sharp eye. She was shaking her head slowly. "I still don't know how this is going to work. I don't know how it even _is_ working."

"Never thought I'd see the Decepticon insignia and not tear off in the other direction," Mike murmured from beside her, tucking his wife and she into his side protectively. Of course there wasn't much point in shielding her and by default anyone else in her immediate vicinity. There would be no breaking past the Seekers' defenses let alone the Cybertronians on stand-by around the city.

"There will be some understandable…difficulties between the two factions," Skywarp interjected from above them. He was looking towards where two mechs, one an orange-framed Autobot and the other a garish red Decepticon, were having a heated argument between themselves in their native language. The humans near to them took a step back, but other than cursing vulgarly at each other they did not resort to physical violence. They broke away from each other with a hiss each before moving in separate directions.

"In-fighting will be kept out of the human eye for the foreseeable future," Thundercracker supplied for his Trine-mate. "Animosity is high between ourselves as well as the humans for us. We will do what is necessary to ensure the treaty is upheld by limiting confrontation to a bare minimum."

"Treaty?" She asked, stepping forward so that she could rub her palms up against his shinplates. He radiated blessed warmth. She fell to the compulsion to rest her cheek against the smooth metal. She hummed even as Mike snorted at her cuddling of the 'enemy'.

"Optimus Prime and Megatron have gone to great lengths to establish a treaty between their factions," Mearing pushed herself back into the conversation, pulling out her phone to as she spoke to survey emails or text messages. Sam didn't know which nor did she care. "The two have been dickering between themselves for days now. The only certainty there seems to be between them is that a standstill will be enacted between themselves until which time the ' _Allspark has ceased to be_ '." The elder woman leveled her with a deliberate scowl.

"They are still ironing out the details, but what it means for the human race is that, in a nut shell, we will be sharing a transfigured planet with another race of beings. They will not be transplanted now that their home world has fused with ours. It has been my job along with several others to come to agreeable terms on the upcoming interactions between our species. It is suggested that, should they wish it, the Cybertronians will predominantly occupy the satellite 'islands' and act as bodyguards for the Earth. In return we will allow environmentally safe harvesting of the Energon they need to survive as a race as well as agreeing to keep our bickering between ourselves to a minimum. Our own wars have had a negative impact upon the land and risks their fuel production."

"No shit," Mike snorted in derision. At the dark look the elder woman have him he sneered. "Don't give me any faces, woman. I don't do shit for you. I'm here for Sam and our friends. We're here to help rebuild."

"I expect you'll want a full report of what has happened?" Mearing asked her instead of rising to Mike's goading. Sam felt her brows rise into her hairline at the due respect clearly expressed in the other blonde's voice. "I am duty-bound to offer all information I have pertaining to the inauguration of the Cybertronian race with their _Primanar_."

"Primanar?" She parroted, looking up to her Chevaliers' glowing red optics. There was mirth in the bond. An ever-present sense of rightness being projected towards her. "What in the world is a Primanar?!"

"You are." Again she was whirling, her eyes snapping against the forms of the two behemoths approaching from a secluded area of the city. The spot where the Galileo Building had once stood was empty of its previous monument and replaced by an expanse of multi-colored metals and stones laid into the ground. Arching up from the intricately lain ground was an archway reminiscent of the ones spanning the planet in a never-ending ring. She could see through the arch itself now, but only moments before she'd felt the zap of electricity against her skin and caught the unmistakable scent of temporal-displacement, something much like ozone except richer.

They'd erected a short-range transpatial warp-drive in the center of Chicago.

Megatron, the one who'd spoken, stood shoulder to shoulder with Optimus Prime. Optimus was scarcely three feet shorter than the Decepticon warlord, but the sheer presence of him made him appear taller. The two were mix-matched bookends, but complimented each other in an odd sort of way. It was the regal bearing they both wore like a second skin, or rather exo, that made them so startlingly similar.

"What, pray tell, is a Primanar?" She crossed her arms and tapped her foot in irritation. Both snickered inwardly at her peaked temper. They found her endlessly adorable, no doubt. She lashed a bit of Allspark power out at them in retaliation, reigning it in almost as quickly as she did so. She was above acting like a petulant child.

Most of the time.

"Primanar is a very, very old term for one of royalty amongst the Cybertronian race, Samantha." She felt Optimus's genuine smile though his faceplates maintained cool indifference. "Its name has not been used since the existence of the Thirteen."

"The name was derived from Primus, our Deity." Megatron strode forward and the Trine allowed a few steps back to give the silvered titan room to kneel above her. He reached forward a clawed servo and one of its tips split much like they had in the Foundry of New Jersey. Grasped securely, yet with reverence between several pincer-like apparatuses was an intricate circlet of pure Energon crystals imbedded into Cybertronian metal.

He held the ornate headpiece aloft before settling it with worshipful pride onto her unmoving scalp. The center crystal hung low and pressed ever-so-lightly against her forehead. Chains of crystals to the rear of the circlet dipped into the crevices of her braid and felt, surprisingly, wedged there. She could only relate the feeling to a magnet meeting metal.

"There was a being before the Thirteen, the first of us, and that was the Primanar. It was the Primanar that ushered us, with the help of the Thirteen Primes, into sentience. When the being was called back to its incorporeal shape it handed down its legacy to the Primes. It was told, in the earliest times of our people, that the Primanar would return again once they were needed most." Megatron, too, was grinning at her. The slats of metal outlining his optics even had the impression of crinkling with delight as he allowed the circlet, _the crown_ , the settle upon her. She was too speechless to move. "You are the Primanar we have waited countless lifetimes for."

Sam was aware of the quiet of the city around her. It was difficult to miss the overwhelming silence. Humans gawked with a mixture of both confusion and awe. Some were filming with their phones to post to the internet later. For their part, the Cybertronians had all fallen to their knees to prostrate themselves before her, their nasal ridges scraping the ground.

She turned slowly to face those she knew, the people of N.E.S.T. and other soldiers she'd come to call friends. Most of them, sluggish though it was, were either saluting or bowing to her. Beyond them were Mike and Shelby, both as shell-shocked as she and wearing their astonishment blatantly on their faces.

Her stomach churned again in a manner not too dissimilar from when her appendix had been failing.

She should have just stayed in bed; even if that bed was an alter that once bore the weight of the Allspark and all of Cybertron's future.

 _Yep. Shoulda just stayed in my damned bed_.

* * *

 **Notes :** I normally don't do this, but there is a story entitled ' _ **Endings of Old and Beginnings New**_ ' by _LittleBittyPretty1_ that I think is one hell of a good read. I'd ask for others to check 'em out and see what you think. A breath of fresh air, truly.


	12. Chapter 12: This Moment In Time

**Chapter Twelve: This Moment In Time**

"Well, if it isn't her royal highness, the resident Transformer Queen herself. To what do I owe the honor?"

The arrival of fall had yet to impact the southern region of Texas. The air was blessedly warm and the Sun was shining with unwavering intensity. A nearby pond was glittering in the light as the steady breeze rippled its surface. The dock, mounted on pontoons for quick and easy storage, rocked gently. Bullfrogs croaked in the tall grass and fronds. The few indigenous trees whispered as their leaves shuffled against each other.

In the distance were well-maintained fences that held grazing cattle within its parameters. It was a small-family ranch not meant to do anything else but sustain itself. The ranch boasted two prized bulls, kept in opposite paddocks, and those bulls were often used for breeding purposes. Many of the offspring sired were infamous rodeo bulls across the nation. The income from studding those two bulls alone granted the ranch owner an easy living.

If one were to meander a ways up the gently sloping hill they were assured to see a spacious ranch house, fairly recently updated, with a generously sized barn nearby. Both the barn and homestead were burnished wood with accents of local masonry and stonework.

Samantha shifted on the hand-carved bench swing imbedded into the earth beside the pond. The weatherproof pillow cushioned her back as she leaned her whole body along the bench with only her right leg hanging off so that she could push herself. The canopy of the live oak was high above her and shaded her from the midday sun.

She smiled sincerely at the man riding up beside where she lay, his brown Stetson slung low over his Icelandic blue eyes. The horse he rode was a great beast of an animal. Its muscles shifted under a velveteen coat of black fur. A single white spot marking its right eye was the only break in the obsidian coat.

"Hi Hunter," she murmured, turning back to look out over the pond. It was a good size. It was about as big around as two Olympic pools set up end to end. The water was only slightly murky and looked so welcoming she was tempted to take a dip.

Hunter dropped from the saddle of his horse, his boots crunching into the grassy expanse of his land, and strode towards her. The horse followed without a word or gesture from its master before settling to graze just beneath the shaded canopy.

He picked up her left leg and sat, depositing the limb onto the tops of his corded, jean-clad thighs. A silent gesture with his right hand had her raising her other leg to lay with its partner. From there he pushed her ankle-length blue skirts up so that he could massage the hairless expanse of her calves and feet with his calloused fingers.

He pushed the swing with his own booted feet, looking at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"How are you, Hunter?" She asked him with genuine curiosity. He hadn't appeared to move with any lingering effects of the shot Vector Prime had brought down upon him. The flannel shirt he wore displayed some of the well-defined musculature of his upper torso when he moved, but the fabric was made purposely loose so that it would not get in the way of his work. Beyond that occasional display, however, she could see nothing of the condition of his skin beneath the working fabric.

"All better," he rumbled to her, digging his thumbs into a particularly tight spot at the arch of her bare left foot. She hadn't been wearing any shoes when she'd brought herself to his home. His lips quirked up into a lopsided smile. "I s'pose I have you to thank for that."

"I could do nothing less for you, Hunter. You should know that." She ached to reach out and cup his cheeks in her palms. She wanted to pull the band from his hair and skim her fingers through the silken strands. Instead she fisted them together in her lap. "You'd have done the same for me if you could have."

"You're right." He agreed readily.

It was quiet for several minutes between them, but it was not uncomfortable. In point of fact, Sam relished in the easy silence. The sounds of nature tickled her ears while the fresh air filled her lungs to brimming. The Grid high above them sent rays of sunlight arcing down in striking patterns to the earth before them. Some of the lightshows that poured downward echoed rainbows without the necessary moisture in the air. The Grid, as it had come to be known, often acted as a suncatcher.

"I see you on the TV a lot." Hunter had ceased to massage her and instead leveled his focused gaze onto her. "You've got your hands fuller than when you just worked as their Ambassador."

She fingered the crystal at her forehead when she caught his deliberate look at it and the circlet it was connected to. The Energon crystal warmed to her touch and glowed consistently whenever settled onto her scalp. The pattern of the circlet itself was the language of the Primes in a stylized, organic sweep. She hadn't been able to discern the words at first and unless one really focused she doubted any being outside of the Cybertronian race would be able to distinguish between the delicate arches and the symbols.

 _ **One light. One world. One truth**_.

"It's exhausting," she admitted to him, pivoting her body so that she could lean against his solid frame. His arm rose and fell in a singular sweep, his hand cupping her upper-arm and drawing her further into his side. She settled her temple against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

The blonde's heart panged. Why oh why couldn't he truly be hers?

"It's been a month and it still feels like day one," she mumbled, her weary body wishing to succumb to sleep. The alien medics had been hounding her for weeks to get a decent night's sleep and were on the cusp of threatening to sequester her in Simphur in order to see the shadows gone from beneath her tired eyes. "We're trying to build a foundation of trust between the humans and Cybertronians and it's, understandably, slow-going. The trades are helping speed things along. While weaponry is clearly off the table, no matter how much some power-hungry pricks may gripe about it, the medical advancements and breakthrough on a cleaner, more efficient source of power has garnered them a lot of favor."

"The way I hear it, you're the one who invented the new solo-cores. Heck, Gunshire is in the process of having one those things brought in. The mayor assured us that the power supply will reach all the way out to even my spread here and will cut our costs for electricity by nearly eighty-five percent." There was a proud smile in his voice and she knew if she looked he would be beaming down at her. "I'd say that would constitute a big 'ole thank you from the hairless monkeys of Earth."

"You're still hairy," she chuckled, picking at his dark arm hair for emphasis. He yelped before snatching his limb away from her teasing fingers.

"How's the queenly thing coming for ya?" He inquired softly, urging her back further into his embrace. He reset his arm around her when he realized that she wasn't going to pluck his arm hairs again. His tone was abruptly worried.

"Sucks," Sam groaned, scrunching up her nose as she said it. "We're still trying to figure that one out. Documents are in the works for dual citizenship when it comes to humans and Cybertronians in the instance that a human is assimilated into the Cybertronian race or vice-versa. That in itself has brought up the question of their mating practices and if any spousal rights would have to be granted should a human marry a Cybertronian. Rights in both cultures."

"They get married?" Hunter asked with shock, his head rearing back on his shoulders.

Sam sighed. "No, they don't. They will take sparkmates, another mech or femme that they tie their Sparks to for life, but it is not the same as human marriage. They don't mate outside of their own race at any rate. Without the ability to make a Spark to Spark connection, it is pointless to them."

"Then why bother with a marriage clause?"

"Because the human race has an affinity for paperwork and red tape." She rubbed her closed eyes tiredly. "The more complicated we can make things, the better."

"So you're going to have dual citizenship?"

"That's what we're striving for right now, yes. For the moment, I'm in limbo. The insurgents that have popped up since Chicago are arguing that I was never human to begin with and I must be a 'Transformer' that has staked out the Earth for years in an attempt to get an in on humans. They're determined to believe that the only thing to come from me and the Cybertronians is destruction. The governments of the world are honoring the diplomatic immunity I have held since becoming Ambassador, but they're reluctant to accept a perceived human in the position of alien authority."

"Queen," Hunter hummed in her ear, chuckling when she swatted him.

"A glorified figurehead."

"Queen," he repeated, flicking the circlet around her head for emphasis.

"Would you stop touching that," she snapped, yanking more of his arm hairs in retribution. He sneered at her, yanking his arm entirely out of her reach. The way he held himself - as though avoiding the vilest of creatures - brought a sluggish smile to her lips.

"Please, leave the circlet alone." She found herself touching the crystal again, humming at the smooth, warm surface of it beneath her fingertips. "It's more than just a pretty accessory like traditional crowns of the human variety. The crystals in this are pure Energon in a solidified form. They connect me back to Simphur and the rest of Cybertron. They...oh, how do I phrase this? They make it easier to be the Allspark because now I don't have to struggle around my human side."

"Your skin feels different," he remarked softly, lowering one hand to stroke at her bared upper right arm. His brows furrowed a little as he considered his next words. "It's still soft, but harder at the same time."

She nodded her head. "Yeah. It's part of the changes my body has been undergoing for years now. With Cybertron here the alterations of my body have progressed rapidly."

"Your eye, though..." Hunter's tone was equal parts woeful and curious. She found herself closing them again as though to make him unsee what he had.

"There's no repairing it." The pupil was as shockingly white as her sclera while only the lavender-hued iris remained the same. Where once she'd been able to see shadows and shades, she was now entirely blind on that side. Her vision hadn't come back even when she'd healed in Simphur and afterwards when Flatline and Ratchet had taken a look at it. "There's no repairing old damage. That's why the scars are still there, too. Ratchet said that he's working on something that might be able to minimize the scarring, but to truly make a go at removing the marks I'd have to have him recut the skin. Quite frankly I don't care enough about having unblemished skin to go through the process of rehealing. Not to mention that it wouldn't completely hide what happened."

"I think it makes you look sexy. Dangerous." He winked at her. "Besides, the eye's kinda cool."

"Not so cool." She handed off a sardonic smile. "I'm jumpy when someone comes up on that side and I can't see them. It gives me a horrible blind spot. I don't like not knowing what's coming."

"I doubt that you're unprotected." He was smirking faintly down at her in an attempt to lighten the mood. "I've seen those bodyguards of yours every time I flip on a news channel. They could bounce a comet out of your corner if they wanted to."

He was right. It was, regularly, Starscream and his Trine that played dutiful Guardians and Chevaliers. It had been proposed for a human team to be permitted to watch over her, but that was the one and only thing the Cybertronians seemed to disallow with a fervent passion. If the Seekers were needed elsewhere, which was rare, then the double-team of Soundwave and Shockwave took over. Beyond those five, who arguably had the strongest connection with her for one reason or another, there were others lingering just out of sight waiting to trounce on the poor fool who thought to draw too close to her.

As far as she could tell, there was never any less than fifteen mechs and/or femmes within five-hundred feet of her at any given time.

This moment was the first in the past month that she was almost entirely alone.

It had taken hours of bickering to finally come to an agreement with her guards and the faction leaders. She could feel the Seekers through the bonds, Skywarp at the ready to warp he and his Trine if he felt anything shy of nervousness from her end, and knew that there was a contingent of Cybertronian soldiers on the edges of Hunter Mason's expansive ranch. If she squinted her eyes and looked hard enough she'd be able to see one of the Warships off on the southern side of the sprawling landscape.

"I'm not alone." She agreed, pressing a palm into her closed, blind eye. "It doesn't make this any easier, though."

"I doubt any of this is going to be easy," he murmured into her hair, nuzzling his nose into the crown of her braid and barely managing to avoid rubbing against the circlet. "You're a strong woman, Sam. You've dealt with things that no one else could have sanely managed and came out on top. You'll do it again and do you want to know why? You, my friend, refuse to be beaten. You're as stubborn as they come and you're going to prove to the world that no one is going to take you down without a fight."

A heartfelt smile touched her lips and on impulse she leaned up to kiss the large male's cheek. His darker skin blushed faintly, but she caught sight of the lopsided grin that attempted to overtake him. That was the smile she was going to miss the most.

"You're a good man, Hunter."

"And you're a good woman, Samantha." He pecked her temple with gentility before growing quiet again, rocking them both in the blessed warmth of the Texas day.

It was perhaps half an hour later that she felt herself being shaken lightly by the shoulders. She'd nodded off. Hunter was smirking down at her from where he still cradled her body against his own. She chuckled lightly, absently rubbing a finger against the edge of her mouth.

"Was I drooling on you?" She queried half in jest.

"Oh no, darlin'. I just figured I'd getcha up and ask if you had any plans? If you have to head back to Washington or wherever it is you have your Fortress of Solitude now, I understand, but if you'd like some roadkill stew I'm more than happy to have some company."

"I cleared my schedule for the rest of the day," the blonde assured him cheerfully. She eeped faintly when, instead of standing and offering her a hand up, Hunter hoisted her up into his arms and stood while embracing her. His eyebrows waggled with mischief.

"Well then my fair Lady, let me escort you back to my domicile for a hearty meal." He hefted her smoothly, a slight frown marring his face after a heartbeat. "You've lost weight."

"Sleep, too," she agreed.

"Well, that just won't do." The big man strode confidently towards his horse, Thunder was the stallion's name if she remembered correctly, and deposited her right up against the horn. The beast didn't flinch at her weight and only raised his head smoothly when Hunter mounted behind her. His left hand settled against her smooth stomach in support while his right took up the reins.

"Let's see how long it takes them to come looking for you, shall we?"

* * *

Samantha chortled with pure delight as Hunter regaled her several hours later with a story about the most recent escapade he'd had with Hank, the feed-store owner of Gunshire, Texas. The roadkill stew had been out of this world and she'd helped herself to two heaping bowlfuls of it. She now rested on his well-worn leather couch with a hand-me-down quilt draped over her lap. A mug of sweet iced tea sat nearby, condensation dribbling off the glass.

She rested her chin on her raised knees, admiring the whole package of the man before her. He was everything she'd ever wanted in a man. He was anything any straight, sane woman would want in a man. Heck, there were undoubtedly men who desired him, though she would bet money that Hunter would be more embarrassed than flattered if she said as much.

Hunter's pale blue eyes met hers.

A breath of silence.

He leaned back into the plush confines of his recliner, crossing his moccasin-clad feet at the ankles and drumming his fingers against the armrests. His gaze was intense, but she didn't shy away from it.

"You know I'm not coming back to N.E.S.T., I s'pose?" He verbalized out of the blue, his tone somber. She hummed and nodded, not speaking. "Colonel Lennox and General Morshower along with Director Mearing offered me a generous retirement package. Lot more than I thought I was gonna get even if I'd stayed on for another twenty years."

Silence.

"You didn't have to do that," he told her, his face a tad on the hard side. "I coulda kept being a soldier for at least another ten years. Wasn't thinkin' of retiring this early in the game. I know it was you that pushed them for it and that's the only reason I agreed. I just wanna know why."

"Because I love you," she responded with quiet earnest. Her grin was sardonic once more. "I love you, Hunter, and I want you to have a life outside of N.E.S.T.. I want you to do what you want to with your life. I want you to go ahead full steam – no reservations – and not have me worrying day in and day out if this next mission is going to be the one you won't come back from."

Sam wanted to get up and go over to him. She wanted to hug him and kiss that dour look from his handsome face. More than anything she wanted to stake her claim on him and call him hers.

…But she couldn't do that to either of them.

"Have a family, Hunter," she pleaded with him, her voice barely above a whisper, but filled to brimming with conviction. "Find a woman you can love and will love you in return. Commit to that love. Raise a family together and fill your home with the best memories you can imagine. Believe me when I say that you don't want to squander the time and the options you have available to you."

"What if I love you?" His jaw was tight now. She felt a distinct prickle behind her eyelids. She was on the verge of crying. "What if I want you forever?"

" _You_ don't have forever," the blonde countered dismally. Her heart ached to say that and everything else. "I don't have forever, either, but I still have much longer than you. It's selfish of me to deny love simply because I can't have it for the rest of my life with the man I desire most, but it would also be unforgivable for me to take you as mine and be unable to give you what you deserve. You deserve a house full of children and laughter. You deserve a family. All I can give you, Hunter, is the love I have for you.

"I cannot bring children into this world because, like everyone else in my life, I'll have to watch them grow old and die well before me. No parent should have to go through that. Even if I could bring myself to have a child, what kind of life would I be bringing them into? A nearly immortal mother who now rules over a race of alien beings? Did you hear about the insurgents? They're going to come after me with everything they have. I have what they all want – _time_. I can look down the centuries and blink as though only a minute has gone by. I'm going to be ostracized very soon and hunted by a race which will always be mine simply because I am no longer held by the bonds of that race alone. The War between the Autobots and Decepticons has come to an end, but there is another on the horizon. The War between the humans and the Cybertronians is inevitable and I refuse to allow you to be caught in the middle of it with me."

That was why she'd funneled some of her enormous financial resources, her personal stash, into creating a more than generous severance package for the soldier. After seeing him be struck by Vector Prime while he protected her, she'd felt something in her break. She couldn't allow him to stay in N.E.S.T. where he would be in so much more danger. Anything could happen out in the real world, but if she could pull him from the front lines and reduce the risk of permanent injury, she would. She _did_.

If he hadn't accepted the early retirement she would have pulled strings and had him removed from the special operations team. It was selfish and wrong of her, but she just couldn't bear it if something happened to him because of her.

Hunter's expression was dark and partially closed off. He was positively miserable. She could taste his bitterness on her tongue. She could feel it in the air. She didn't break eye contact, however. She scarcely blinked in the proceeding moments until, eventually, he sighed gustily.

"I already took the retirement. I'll spend the rest of my days on this ranch, I wager." He ran a callused hand over his scalp tiredly. "Y'know, I'm doin' this for you. I appreciate what you've done for me and the extra funds. It'll help me get this ole place up to snuff again. Not to mention that whatever you did to me after Vector Prime filled my back full of buckshot has revved me up. I ain't felt this damned good in years!

"But Sam – I want you to know that if things coulda been different, you'd have been mine as much as I'd have been yours." His grin was wistful at best. "You're some woman, Samantha Jane Witwicky."

"I think we've covered this one already," she joked in an attempt to lighten the acrid mood.

"I s'pose we have." A pause. "You won't be comin' back, will you?"

"No, I won't."

"Can't say as I blame you. It'd probably be as hard on me. Seeing you as beautiful as you are now thirty years down the line while I'm turning into a crotchety old man like my father was." Hurt shone in his striking eyes. "No, probably won't be as hard on me. I can't imagine seeing you grow old without me. Seeing you slip out of my hands like that."

"Please don't talk about it," she choked on tears, suppressing the frantic inquiries hurtled her way through the comms and bonds. Her anxiety was nerving the automatons up. If she didn't calm herself down, there would be a battalion of cybernetic Warships descending upon the main house within moments.

Several deep breaths later, she'd brought herself back under firm control. The primary crystal hanging from the circlet dimmed as her tumultuous emotions stuttered back to normal. The crystal acted like a mood ring when she was piqued.

"Sorry I missed Megatron's inauguration." Hunter snickered flippantly. He waggled his eyebrows at her teasingly. "Think it was a good idea to make him and Optimus bigger bastards than they already were?"

"I didn't do it purposefully, you ass." She threw a throw pillow at him with a hearty laugh, remembering clearly to the day not two weeks prior he referred to.

* * *

 _There were select filming crews scattered across the expanse of Simphur's primary courtyard. Ten human news channels had been granted permission to step onto the sacred Temple's precipice, though the entrance was guarded heavily against their entrance. The Temple of Simphur was not to be breeched by non-Cybertronian feet. The purpose of its existence was to house the Allspark and allow the granting of new life to the ancient race. It wasn't a museum for tourists to trapes around in._

 _This matter, however, had been debated and discussed in heavy detail for weeks. Cybertron and Earth were now One and that meant that certain allotments would have to be made in regards to the sharing of cultures. Neither race could shut out the other completely without harming whatever chances they had at coexisting._

 _It had been deemed necessary for a heavily screened selection of journalists to be present on Simphur for the Honoring. They were escorted by a handful of N.E.S.T. personnel and Cybertronian soldiers from both sides of the previously warring factions. The journalists came from each of the continents and were highly respected for their professionalism and discreetness. It was agreed upon before the permission to film was granted that they would withhold questions until a later date – two days later – and that they would not move from where they were instructed to stand._

 _If one human stepped out of place all of them would be escorted immediately off Simphur and never allowed to step upon the sacred grounds again._

 _Samantha stood upon the ground wearing a billowing white skirt and short-sleeved blush-hued blouse. Simphur had drifted to hover over Southern California during the last several weeks. Despite the high elevation, the raw Energon around them radiated heat. The other humans had removed their jackets shortly after arriving due to the unflappable seventy-eight-degree temperature. The circlet lay heavily over her scalp, the dangling crystals chiming when the wind caught her braid and blew it out behind her._

 _Optimus Prime and Megatron kneeled before her, their right forearms over their bent right knees and their helms bowed. They'd been in that position for close to thirty minutes, their processors having opened a comm line between them that would be unshakable in its entirety until their dying days. She herself had, fueled by the Allspark's knowledge, opened that rift between them._

 _Their memories and emotions flooded between them both like an echoing tidal wave. A bond was solidifying between them. It was similar to the one she held with all of her mechs and femmes, but different at its core. This bond had not been shared for millennia. A bond such as theirs had not been in existence since the Thirteen Primes had walked the stars._

 _She waited with calm serenity for their Sharing to complete, knowing that the film crews were recording it all. The hundreds of Cybertronians in attendance, too, were streaming a live feed of the happenings to all others of their kind. In a way, this was opening the door for humans to work their way into Cybertronian culture – at the very least not be mere befuddled bystanders – but it was also going to bring about a wealth of animosity. On this day she was going to be setting herself irrevocably apart from her birth-race._

 _There was no going back after this._

 _With an electronic whine, both helms raised and bright optics, one set blue and the other red, trained onto her. Awe bombarded her from the two. She'd triggered the Sharing without their prior knowledge and the titans clearly had an inkling now of what she intended._

 _The crystal to her forehead flared as the power rose within her. Energy poured from her in waves. The filming equipment of the humans hummed as the batteries were supercharged, though fortune smiled upon them when the overload of power didn't cause circuitry to blow. Her voice boomed across the courtyard._

" _In the earliest times of Cybertron, there were the Honored Dynasty of Primes. These were the warriors of Primus himself. They were the first, the Elite, the greatest of all. In those times, it was understood an acknowledged that only Primus himself or the Allspark could Honor a mech or femme to Primehood. The children of Cybertron lived by their Primes and understood their worth, as it was the Primes that safeguarded the Allspark and the sanctity of life._

" _With time, dissention grew. The children allowed themselves to move from the old ways. Self-importance became a way of being. False Primehood was given by those not Honored to do so. Generations of leaders carrying a title not rightfully bestowed and passing on falsehoods to the newer generations._

" _On this day, a grievance from a time long forgotten shall be rectified." Her voice lowered a fraction as she looked to the two kneeling mechs. Optimus and Megatron gaped at her, though their faceplates maintained stoic indifference. She fought the urge to smile encouragingly at them. She could not make light of this moment._

" _Orion Pax, leader of the Autobots. You have proven yourself a wise and just master. A brave fighter and brilliant tactician. You place yourself above no one, your humble beginnings granting you a rare, but precious insight into the lives of those you seek to protect. You are the voice and the eye of your people. You are the Great Leader._

" _Megatronus, leader of the Decepticons. You have fought your way from the dregs of lower society. Your strength and determination is irrefutable. Despite the affliction of The Fallen's will upon your own, you have come back to yourself. Your steadfast belief in doing what is best for the future of your people, though sometimes misguided, and indomitable will make you one of the most powerful sons of Primus to ever exist. You are the backbone of your people. You are the High Protector."_

 _Samantha raised her hands, palms outstretched and facing towards the two gob-smacked behemoths. Energy whiplashed from her, striking them in an invisible wave against their chassis directly above their Sparks. Their bodies shuddered and grunts echoed as their frames morphed and expanded._

 _She felt her eyes glow and heard several of the humans present gasp._

" _From this day forward, the two mechs known as Orion Pax and Megatronus are no more than a memory of what was and will no longer be. Under the Optic of Primus and the Power of the Allspark, Optimus Prime and Megratron Prime shall lead their brethren forward in this new world. May they bring us to a time of Unity and Peace. May they rule well in their Primehood. May Primus watch over them."_

* * *

It got fuzzy from that point onward.

Sam remembered feeling power flow from her and into the two mechs. She felt true Primehood take root in their very frames and Sparks. The Other hadn't spoken, but she'd heard his acceptance and approval of what she'd done in her heart. When the exodus of energy had ceased, her body had collapsed.

When she came to she was in 'her room' on the alter/bed of Simphur with an Honored pair of warrior 'brothers' bowing to her. Optimus and Megatron had grown in sheer mass. The alloy that they were comprised of had shifted and metastasized. The two had grown several feet in height each and were considerably more built in their frames. Optimus was nearly as brutish, despite the sleek aerodynamics of his multicolored frame, as Megatron had been before his own change. Newer formations of armor made him appear bedecked in Middle-Aged knight's armor. For his part, Megatron was a veritable powerhouse of alien machinery. They were each stockier and packed with a heavier arsenal. Megatron's thigh region had widened considerably and the jagged armor of his plating intensified. A finely-carved battle mask retreated to either side of his helm and was reminiscent of upward-curving warthog tusks.

The two had genuflected to her to the point that she had to order them off. There was still too much that needed to be done and when she discovered she'd slept through an entire day she knew she needed to meet with the journalists about what had transpired. The footage release was to be broadcasted whether she got the necessary interview in with the humans or not. She couldn't let the film be shown to the rest of humanity without explaining to them what they were seeing.

"The Cybertronians need true Primes now more than ever." She told Hunter, pushing the quilt off of her lap after receiving an urgent request through the comms. She'd finagled it so that she could have the remainder of her day off to spend with Hunter, but like everything else in her life nothing seemed to go as planned. A dignitary's work was never done no matter how much she wished it so. "Those two are destined to work together. They will help their race – and ours – to coexist and thrive."

"It's going to take a lot of time," Hunter quipped unnecessarily, rising to stand beside her. The comms pinged in her mind once more, more forceful this time. She could hear one of the Warships breaching the quiet of the house as it drew closer. She had an armed escort coming to retrieve her.

"I have nothing but time now," she murmured sadly.

On impulse, she launched herself into his arms, stretching up to hug his neck. He held her back nearly as tightly, one hand cradling the soft swell of her back and the other diving into her braid at the base of her skull. She kissed his cheek chastely, unwilling to subject herself to the mouth-to-mouth embrace she desired most from him.

That would have been a torture she couldn't survive.

"Take care of yourself, Hunter. Please?" She pecked his cheek again, backing out of his reluctantly relinquished hold. The droop of his shoulders told her exactly how much this goodbye hurt him as well. "If you ever have need of me, you know how to find me."

"Goodbye, Sam," Hunter muttered with regret as she backed out the front door.

"Goodbye, Hunter."

Outside, the Warship dropped down fifty feet from the house. The gangway appeared from the underbelly of the ship, a single mech striding out to meet her on entry. The yellow scout gazed at her sorrowfully, his Spark hurting for her pain.

She forced a smile for her first Guardian and best friend. "Don't worry, 'Bee. It's all going to be okay. Just give it some time."

Striding up into the ship, her bare feet uncaringly trailing dirt and grass up into the pristine hull, she knew that this moment wasn't going to be the last of her hardships. She had an eternity that she was looking down the barrel of and countless lives she would have to say goodbye to. Humans fought for time, which was an unachievable goal to begin with as time is an incorporeal thing; wished and prayed for an abundance of it so that they might better enjoy their lives, not understanding that living fully in the time one has is all that mattered in the end. She wished to parcel it away, knowing in her heart that the yawning expanse of eternity had the power to destroy her soul if not her body because the human condition carried the weight of ten thousand lifetimes in the course of a single century.

Perhaps, however, time would be its own cure.

Because ' _time is what keeps everything from happening at once._ ' -Ray Cummings.

* * *

 **Notes :** This is the End of Eclipsing the Stars. I know I took you all in a completely different direction than the movie and even the fandom, but I hope you've enjoyed the ride! The next installment will be called ' ** _Dawn of Eternity_** ' and is coming very soon. I hope to see you there! If not, I hope your days are Blessed from now until the end of your eternities.


	13. Transformers Installments

Transformers Installments:

 **All the Stars in the Sky**

Status: COMPLETE

Summary: Samantha Jane Witwicky was always known as the pretty girl. She hoped one day to be something more, to get beyond a frightening encounter of her past. She wanted a miracle, but never expected visitors from heaven.

 **Shooting Stars and Setting Suns**

Status: COMPLETE

Summary: Samantha is one of the lucky few human beings gifted with the knowledge that life does indeed live out amongst the stars, but also amongst the humans as friends and protectors.

 **Soliloquy of Fallen Stars**

Status: COMPLETE

Summary: It's all just a farce. Going to college, attending a few parties, and studying to get a degree that wouldn't amount to more than a piece of paper on the wall. Samantha Witwicky knew that, but still she wanted to attempt to be a normal human. The time for the Fallen to Rise has come and even a play at normality is far out of her reach.

 **Eclipsing the Stars**

Status: COMPLETE

Summary: Samantha Jane Witwicky has survived much in the Eternal War that has raged between the Autobots and Decepticons, but the age of bloodlust and death must come to an end. The time has come for all that was hidden in shadow to come to light. The fate of both of their worlds hangs in the balance.

 **Dawn of Eternity**

Status: WIP

Summary: The Creators have resurfaced and they are displeased with the path their creations have followed. It is up to the Primanar and her allies to defend their new home against the destruction the Creators seek to lay upon them. The road to Life rests in that direction, but at what cost? What are you willing to sacrifice?


End file.
